Cobourg Poetry Workshop
Third Thursday Reading Series
7:30 p.m.
doors open 7:00 p.m.
Thursday, July 17, 2025
Poets:
A. Garnett Weiss
Life, after life (Aeolus House)
Phyliss Hammerstrom Wright
Timeless Travelers
Felicity Sidnell-Reid
The Many Faces (Aeolus House)
Host:
Linda Hutsell-Manning
The Northumberland Room
The Best Western Cobourg Inn
at the intersection of Elgin and Burnham
& Poetry Open Mike
Again along with the featured Readings, there will be
poetry Open Mike poets, who (having signed-up that evening),
will take to the microphone in 4 slots throughout the event:
before and after the first Featured Poet, after the Intermission and
at the end of the event.
Admission: PWYC (pay what you can)
Suggested minimum donation:
five dollars … $5.00 … five bux
Poetry Readings happen on the 3rd Thursday every month.
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We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts / League of Canadian Poets for A. Garnett Weiss' Featured Reading.
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JC Sulzenko tells us a poorly kept 'secret', "My two recent collections were written and published under my pen name, A. Garnett Weiss."
Aeolus House published JC’s third poetry collection, “Life, after life— from epitaph to epilogue”, in the autumn of 2024. Weiss is its author.
“This new book contains over 60, five-line found poems, which draw words and phrases unaltered from death notices and obituary articles published in the Toronto Globe and Mail. They reflect musings about living and life, rather than about death and dying.”
“Bricolage: A Gathering of Centos” (Aeolus House), her second book of poetry, was named a finalist for the Canadian Authors Association’s 2022 national Fred Kerner Award.
Her centos had won the 2023 and 2019 Wind & Water Contests (County Arts.)
Point Petre Publishing issued her debut collection of narrative and lyric poetry, “South Shore Suite”.
Her award-winning poetry appears in anthologies and journals in print and online.
JC is a full member of the League of Canadian Poets.
She also serves on the Board of TOPS (The Ontario Poetry Society).
JC creates impromptu poems as fundraisers for charitable causes.
She welcomes opportunities to introduce her work to community groups. Sometimes, she writes poetry on commission.
JC Sulzenko adopted the pen name A. Garnett Weiss initially to gain distance from the lyric and narrative poetry (and writing for children) for which she was known.
As she explored writing centos and found poetry generally, she decided to use the pseudonym primarily for such creative work.
“I took the elements of the name A. Garnett Weiss from family references, including a nod to my maternal grandmother and to my mother and father.
“You can imagine my surprise when I discovered much more recently that Edgar Lee Masters, the author of Spoon River Anthology – a source of inspiration for my second poetry collection “Bricolage: A Gathering of Centos” – was born in Garnet, Kansas! What a coincidence! What serendipity!” she exclaimed.
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In early June, just weeks ago, Cobourg Poetry Workshop member Phyliss Hammerstrom Wright released a new chapbook of poetry, Timeless Travelers..
Phyliss is a new Canadian exploring a diverse culture and the rich tradition of Canada’s literature.
Phyliss Wright’s journey as a poet started in university days, when she edited a literary magazine in Colorado during the tumultuous sixties, where she also taught mountain climbing and piton-craft.
Phyliss is also a serious acrylic painter who has had two solo exhibitions.
Phyliss returned to writing poetry after a stint in the U. S. Marines as an air traffic controller.
Poems are a way she explores the world and her own thoughts about life. Her work is shaped by her adventures in Afghanistan, Spain, Poland, and Siberia, but her formative work began in widowhood, when Phyliss served as a hospital director in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa of Pakistan, and then as a teacher in the United Arab Emirates.
Phyliss wrote with the Kent State University Writers Group for over twenty years and still meets with them remotely.
Earlier, she had Whitewater Boundary released by Greenleaf Press, plus the collection Haiku Harvest.
Just a few years ago, she married a Canadian, Eric Wright, who is a Northumberland writer. Now, a new(ish) resident of Port Hope, Phyliss is a member of the Cobourg Poetry Workshop.
Phyliss hopes you will share some of these adventures with her when she shares her poetry at our Third Thursday Reading Series event on the evening of July 17.
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About Timeless Travelers:
This chapbook of poetry will have you ... travel the world and time ...
... through the musings of a peripatetic poet.
Dive into the waters of the Baikal in Siberia.
Listen to the call of the muezzin in Al Ain.
Meditate on Biblical wisdom.
Ponder quantum physics.
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Felicity Sidnell Reid is a member of the Cobourg Poetry Workshop. She says of herself:
I came to Canada after graduating from London University, with a History (Hons) degree and a Post-graduate Certificate in Education.
For seven years I lived in Sackville, New Brunswick, where three of my children were born. My life and surroundings there were so different from those I had known in London as a student, that it was only after I had left the Maritimes that I realized what a deep, abiding love that region had evoked in me. It is still the place that I regard as my Canadian “home”.
Once my children were in school, I began teaching full-time. I’ve taught people of all ages from 10 year-olds to adults in Canada, Britain and Thailand. For many years I taught for the Toronto (District ) School Board and then became an administrator, serving as Vice-Principal in several high schools.
While teaching I developed a variety of teaching materials and wrote with colleague, Frances Parkin, text books for ESL students and a book for teachers, ESL is Everybody’s Business.
I also wrote poetry and the occasional short story, as well as two mystery novels with a friend.
In 1998, I, my husband, dog and cat all moved to Northumberland County.
Two writing groups kept me interested, productive and supported in my forays into short stories and poetry, which have been published in anthologies, on-line journals and newspapers.
Then I became intrigued by a story about one of the earliest families of settlers in this area. Slowly my novel, Alone: A Winter in the Woods began to grow and develop. This book was my chief focus for a long time.
However, I also sat on the Board of the Spirit of the Hills Arts Association. and chaired the Spirit of the Hills Writers’ Group.
The group became interested in the new radio station in Cobourg, Northumberland 89.7 FM. Gwynn Scheltema and I proposed a twelve week series in which we would interview writers of all kinds: novelists, memoirists, editors, poets and publishers from our region and invite them to read from their work. The programme, which first aired in the fall of 2013, is still running!
Please visit our website
http://www.wordonthehills.com where all our episodes from Word on the Hills are archived and available at any time and from anywhere.
Since then, I have also edited, with others, four anthologies titled Hill Spirits Volumes 1-4 which showcase local writers as well as a collection of writing, reflecting our experience of living under Covid, titled Our Pandemic Times, with Kim Aubrey.
And in 2021 I published The Yellow Magnolia and other poems, Glentula Press and in 2022
The Many Faces was released by Aeolus House.
Allan Briesmaster who started and operates Aeolus House has been an active supporter of our Third Thursday Reading Series during the past 15 years.
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Also check out other Arts events in Cobourg, Literary Art events in Cobourg, Workshops in Cobourg.
