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  • Centos for the 21st century –lose yourself in BRICOLAGE

    On October 15, JC and colleague Blaine Marchand gave a by-invitation, in-person reading from their new poetry collections for friends under the canopy at the most hospitable winery in Prince Edward County, Half Moon Bay Winery.

    This event followed Aeolus House’s virtual launch of JC’s book of centos, BRICOLAGE, and Blaine’s BECOMING HISTORY on Thursday, September 23 before some 100 viewers.

    “It’s a real pleasure to read aloud in front of people whose reactions are immediate and true rather than confined to the small screen,” JC observed.

    On each occasion, JC read more than a dozen poems, including one cento that reuses lines from various poems in BRICOLAGE in memoriam the child victims of residential schools. “I didn’t know what to do” will remain unpublished as a one-time only cento of centos,” JC stated.

    BRICOLAGE comes out under JC’s pseudonym, A. Garnett Weiss, adopted to give her distance from her lyric or narrative work.

    Bricolage-front cover

     

    JC admitted that gathering her centos into a volume proved challenging but also brought joy. She thanked poets Olive Senior, Keith Garebian and Gregory Betts for providing the fine comments which appear on the book’s back cover. She also acknowledged how grateful she is to fine artist Diana Gubbay for allowing her stunning “Cathedral Forest” collage to grace the book’s front cover. Here’s a link to Ms. Gubbay’s website: https://www.dianagubbay.com

    “I thank Allan Briesmaster for publishing BRICOLAGE. It was an honour to share the programs with Blaine Marchand.”

    To order BRICOLAGE for $18 plus shipping and handling, please email bricolage.weiss@gmail.com.

    Copies of the book also can be purchased from Books & Company in Picton, Ontario, or from Octopus Books in Ottawa, Ontario .

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  • Impromptu poetry morphs into BESPOKE POETRY or POETRY To-GO– JC Sulzenko writes poems on commission

    “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. “I’ve now launched “BESPOKE POETRY” to give me the chance to create new poems this way.”

    JC began her love affair with poetry written on demand many summers ago at what was then known as “Art in the park,” 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.

    She attached certain caveats to the process: payment upfront; she held the copyright to the poem; no one could dispute what she had written; she reserved the right to refuse to write on a subject with which she was not comfortable.

    Those who dared to test her skills were interviewed briefly about the subject they had chosen, then sent away to wander among the artisans. When they returned, they picked up the poem in a neat scroll. More often than not, they unravelled the poem and read it on the spot. And commented. Almost all very pleased with the result.

    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, adding a tent and chairs to facilitate the interviews and for the sake of privacy. Each year, the price tag went up by a bit. The final year of her participation, the funds raised were donated to 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.”

     

     

     

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  • New Feature: BOOKENDS – What fiction and non-fiction JC Sulzenko reads

    Starting today and from time to time, JC will post her views about some of the books she has been reading. Each post will share her candid assessment of the craft and content of books on her reading list. Reviews will be kept to around the same number of words as the characters Twitter allows per Tweet.

    “Rather than simply going on to the next book, it’s important for me as a writer to reflect on how what I read stays with me.

    “I admit I generally look at reviews only AFTER I finish a book so as to not have such comments predispose me to think about it in a particular way. So I recognize how my reflections may influence other readers to take up a book. Or to avoid it. It’s for that reason I want my thoughts to strike a good balance between honesty and respect.”

    JC emphasizes that the views she expresses will be entirely her own. She’ll rate each book on a scale of 1 to 10. JC welcomes feedback on her comments through this website or on Twitter @jcsulzenko.

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  • Why JC uses a pseudonym

    “Why not?” JC suggests. “So many writers have adopted a pseudonym when they explore a different genre from the one by which they are best known. Most recently, J.K. Rowling took on a nom de plume for her first book since the Harry Potter juggernaut. That novel didn’t attract much interest until her lawyer’s firm somehow managed to leak that she had written it. And then… Well, I’m not exactly sure what that shows, since she is the most successful woman writer of our time. However, for the mystery novel which followed that first effort,  she used her own name,  and that book turned out to be a success.

    “When I began to write, I was still working  full-time and wanted to differentiate my working life from my writing life. That’s when I began to sign my articles in the media and my poems and books for children as JC Sulzenko.

    “What I noticed, though, was that my profile became dominated by the work I do with young, emerging poets and writers. While being typecast as a children’s writer is fine in itself, I wondered if such typecasting might influence how my poems for an adult audience would be received.  It’s at that point I began to use A. Garnett Weiss as my pseudonym for poetry for a general readership.

    Poems by Garnett have won a few prizes and appeared in a number of chapbooks and of on-line journals. Recently, one of the poems was shortlisted for Arc’s Poem of the Year 2014.

    “I enjoy the double identity,” JC affirms. “Garnett is a daring poet, and I am happy to follow her lead wherever she takes me.”

     

     

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  • A Play for children from JC Sulzenko

    What my grandma means to say, JC’s one-act play, gives elementary school-aged children and their families the chance to learn in a gentle way about how Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias can affect a person and what they can do to support someone living such a disease.

    The setting provided by the play encourages children to ask questions in a safe-feeling environment, removed from the emotion that attaches when such an illness affects someone close to them.

    (more…)

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Poetry for Adults

Click on any of these book covers to order them.

Books For Young Readers


 

JC’s “Kid Space”

For young poets and readers