Category: Archive

Right after Editor Melanie Villines ended this California press’s hiatus, JC welcomed the opportunity to contribute her poem “Deadbolt” to its new, online series.

“The Editor’s choice of ’my front door’ for the current series’ theme strikes me as inspired and evocative. During the pandemic, what happens inside or outside open or closed doors, whether metaphorical or physical, offers poets such scope to explore experiences real or imagined,” JC commented.

Silver Birch Press has published JC’s poems in a number of its anthologies and in various online series. She is the only Canadian whose work appears in its 2015 chapbook anthology, IDES.

Here is the link to “Deadbolt” to cut and paste into your browser:

Deadbolt by JC Sulzenko (MY FRONT DOOR Series)

zoom once defined a lens
now opens conversations
face-to-face-to-face

JC was delighted that Editors at VALLUM chose her found poem “Whether or not transference occurs” for issue 17.1, which launched at an innovative, online watch party on April 24, 2020. Here is the link that will bring you her reading.

“Whether or not transference occurs” uses words drawn unaltered from death notices and obituary articles published on a single day in the Toronto GLOBE AND MAIL. The poem is part of a full collection seeking a publisher.

“I thank VALLUM’S Editors for including my piece in the ‘home’ issue. It’s a privilege to appear in the magazine and to be in the fine company of other poets whose work is featured there,” JC noted after the launch. She took the opportunity also to read two centos.

Here is a link to VALLUM’s whole digital issue 17.1:

http://www.vallummag.com/current_issue_copy171.html

JC writes centos and found poetry under the pseudonym A. Garnett Weiss.

JC offers her deepest sympathy to the family of patriarch Ellis Marsalis along with her poem,”Like father, like son.” Written in 2003 after the Marsalis family played together at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, the poem has been published elsewhere, most recently in VERSE AFIRE (The Ontario Poetry Society.)

May memories of Ellis, as was his life, be a blessing.

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON

Ellis Marsalis caresses the keys, releases melody.
His sons trombone, sax, trumpet, drum
into the music, explore its geography,
improvise new routes to the source of sound.

They play together, yet play alone,
a composition so intimate it’s a surprise
when the jazz flows back to where it began.

What lingers is not only the music.
It’s Ellis. His voice soft,
he introduces each son
as though unwrapping a gift.

Did he know from the start how it would be,
sharing the same stage, each other’s rhythms
the joyful dissonance, harmonies?

He’d likely say luck had a hand in it, led
his boys past the usual rejection of a father’s
ways to choose such instruments
for the love of him, for the love of song.

COUNTING

First the children, immune to this assault,
their coughs and sneezes innocent for now.
Then their parents, our children —
not in the crosshairs, but still…

These tykes, their dads & moms feel well,
grateful for no symptoms, yet wide-aware
every breath’s a timebomb tick
if they’re carriers.

We, the elders/the old, keep distant, weave
sorry days around, away from those we love.
Cloistered, anxious, tethered to a hope for health,
we hold no expectation of normal.

A wall
transparent, translucent

Easy to walk through
if you dare

I don’t
I stare at the street

Sunlit, snow covered
empty

Put my hands up to the wall
Feel cold, cold

cold as hard as my choices
Be exposed or cocoon

Hyper-vigilant, yet numb
I want to run, don’t know where

JC is very pleased that her work will appear in upcoming issues of VALLUM: CONTEMPORARY POETRY and THE NAUGATUCK RIVER REVIEW. In May, Poetry Leaves, a poetry exhibition and anthology project of the Waterford Township Public Library (Michigan), was slated to feature her for the second year in a row.

“I’m delighted by the reception my found poetry has received and look forward, as well, to seeing an ekphrastic poem based on an image by Prince Edward County photographer Graham Davies in print.

JC continues to curate “Poetry Quarter” for the community newspaper,THE GLEBE REPORT, and serves on the selection board for ByWords.ca, an online, monthly poetry journal.

BOXING DAY COLOURS

Three black pigeons found solace

in the too-warm puddles

They alone had not dreamt of a white Christmas

Did not regret the grim, gray slush

that bequeathed lines of salt to new leather boots

still stiff from packages, now crushed and

stuffed along with blue reindeer wrapping

and rivers of silver ribbon

into bulging green garbage bags

at the curb

of a new year

JC is very pleased that Jenny O’Grady, Editor and Publisher of The Light Ekphrastic (TLE), chose her to collaborate with Baltimore artist Leah Michaels for the August issue of the online journal.

The journal exclusively publishes ekphrastic collaborations.

JC is no stranger to TLE and welcomes the opportunity to write in response to works of art and to have her work interpreted by artists who use various media.

In “Recessional,” JC offered a poem originally written to incorporate words from a poetry challenge. Leah Michaels chose to create an image related to memory, relationship, language, and ruins in response.

In “I must bury sorrow,“ JC writing as A. Garnett Weiss, used the cento form and lines from Robert Browning to respond to Leah’s image of The Angel of Grief by 19th century US sculptor William Wetmore Story.

Here is the link to their work to cut and paste into your browser:

Michaels & Sulzenko – August 2019

JC thanked Leah Michaels and Jenny O’Grady for the chance to let art influence her poetry and for her poetry to influence art in such a forum.

“I find great joy in writing ekphrastic poetry,” JC admits. “I feel enriched by each experience.”

Working together, JC and writing partner Carol A. Stephen have developed a full collection of ekphrastic poems written collaboratively, some of which have been published. All they need now is a poetry publisher to help these innovative intepretations reach a wider audience.

Poet JC brought her impromptu poetry-writing to the Birds and Bees Fundraiser on Saturday, July 27 during two, 90-minute time slots.

For a $10 fee, she interviewed willing nature enthusiasts and turned what she learned into a poem with a minimum of 3 lines, which the buyer received in file form after the event. All proceeds benefitted PEPtBO in Prince Edward County, Ontario.

Use this link to access a poem JC wrote in response to a commission at the event by Tamara Segal:

“This tailored poem is a mini-version of the services I provide when I write poetry on commission,” JC explained.

JC only writes on subjects within the bounds of public discourse. There are no returns, and the copyright for each poem stays with JC.

“I just can’t resist the challenge: writing to a subject not of my choosing, suggested by someone whom I didn’t know beforehand, for the most part, to mark a birthday, an anniversary, a special event or person, or in memoriam,” JC admits. “That is why I launched “BESPOKE POETRY” to give me the chance to create new poems or poems to-go this way.”

JC began her love affair with poetry written on demand many summers ago at a showcase for artists, crafts people and assorted others in her neighbourhood. Wearing a lot of sunscreen and with paper pad and pen, she set up a table and offered to write poems for visitors at $2.50 each, the proceeds of which went to a charitable organization. She cannot remember to which one the modest take went that first year.

Though not a big fundraiser, JC found the experience exhilarating. “I used a number of the poems written at that festival in “Fat poems Tall poems Long poems Small,” my ekphrastic book of poems for families and children to which Ottawa artists contributed interpretative illustrations.” Several other poems found their way into chapbooks.

For a couple of years, JC returned to the venue. Each year, the price tag went up by a bit. The final year of her participation, she raised funds for a local hospital.

Then she stopped, overtaken by other writing projects including “Boot Crazy” and later by “What My Grandma Means to Say,” her book and play about Alzheimer’s disease.

Now she has taken up poetry on commission again with enthusiasm. The process begins with agreement on a base price for the poem, which can take the form of free verse or rhyme. The ‘buyer’ pays JC upfront. Then, there’s an interview which can take as little as 10 minutes over the phone or up to an hour face-to-face, where that’s convenient to the parties.

JC considers carefully what she has learned about the subject and writes the poem within the timeframe agreed to in the discussions. The length of the poem can vary depending the subject matter. Once she’s satisfied, she shares the poem and asks for comments as to accuracy only. If there are any factual inaccuracies, she corrects them and then provides a final text.

She asks that the poem not be published without her prior permission and then only with clear acknowledgment as to her authorship.

“I have written about a granddaughter’s graduation from high school on her birthday, the death of a child, a dog who dreams. It’s such an adventure, never knowing where a new poem will begin or to where it will take me.”