POETRY TAKES TO THE STREETS, THOUSANDS CHEER

                                  muse@11

POETRY boldly took to the streets in Cobourg Ontario this past Canadada Day. The Imagine Nation of the Peoples Republic of Poetry, in accordance with the “primary policy of poetry proliferation”, sponsored the event, POETRIOTS ON PARADE.

Cobourg’s third Poet Laureate, Ted Amsden, led the way in a sleek Porsche convertible; beauty and power of a well-engineered poem. This was in high contrast to the local political dignitaries perched on more, how shall we say it, prosaic convertibles at the front of the parade.

Poet Amsden, our poetical dignitary, was caboosed by the end of the parade, imbedded into the Santa Claus position, far away from the farces of mediocrity. This led one local wit to comment that Poet Amsden should portray himself as Sonnet Claus.

Poet Amsden was provided with a bag of poetry, neatly folded into stealthy paper airplane poems, armed with surface to sentence similes. They were launched towards the poetariet lined along the route. Back to the poem age.

Now is the rhyme for all good poets to come to the aid of poetry

A spontaneous act of dipoematic poetnership between the Peoples Republic of Poetry and the folkistas of the Shelter Valley Folk Festival allowed more placards of wit and poetry to be displayed along the streets of Cobourg. An accompanied sedan blasted out that ole 60’s one hit wonder by Johnny Tillitson, Poetry In Motion.

For once poetry was the litter de jour on the streets. Stanzas drifting down the street on random breezes, airy somethings in our local habitation.

Poet Laureates of Canada: ARISE. Our brand is POETRY. Sell it! OUT LOUD!!!

Rick Beaver speaks at Cobourg Ecology Garden, Earth Day Sunrise Celebration, 2012

Rick Beaver, artist, biologist, founder of Black Oak Savannah, and member of the Mississauga-Ojibway Nation in Alderville, Ontario. Mr Beaver speaks at the Cobourg Ecology Garden, Earth Day Sunrise Celebration, April 22, 2012

Ted Amsden reads at the Cobourg Ecology Garden, Earth Day Sunrise Celebration, 2012

Cobourg Poet Laureate, Ted Amsden, reads at the Cobourg Ecology Garden, Earth Day Sunrise Celebration, April 22, 2012.

Raise the Stanza of Living

On Labour Day weekend in 1969, some young people took to downtown Cobourg with brushes in hand to paint the downtown, literally. It was called a Paint-In. Retail stores offered up their windows for a week to be painted by local artists. Only water-colours could be used. The Sept 3 issue of Cobourg Sentinel Star did a big front-page-above-the-fold spread on the Paint-In.

There are too many empty retail outlets downtown with store windows looking more like sore windows. Here’s the pitch.

Cobourg is chock-a-block with poets. They could fill the emptiness of windows with literary substance. One poem per window. The Cobourg Poetry Workshop is a gathering pot of poets, emerging poets, and poetry lovers who could easily fill the windows with their inspiration.

Surely the town could provide the paper and print one poem from each of Cobourg’s three Poet Laureates. The current Poet Laureate could vet the submitted poems from others.

There must be some aspiring poets in our three high schools who would like to display their highly refined literacy.

Don’t take my word for it, take theirs and celebrate it. Fill empty windows with eloquent intelligence. Spread the word. Bring poetry out of the better poems and gardens salons and take it to the streets.

Poetry all too often lies like a cadaver collecting dust on library shelves. Take it to the streets. Poetry for pedestrians.

Raise Cobourg’s stanza of living, post poetry on the ephemeral emptiness of store windows. Make Cobourg our poem and native land.

Ted Amsden reads Musings Upon a Harbour

Cobourg Poet Laureate, Ted Amsden, opens the new year with eloquence: "there were hills of coal at Cobourg's waterfront where children bike mounted, black faced, and day crazy challenged each other to greater heights," "stacking up moments of joy like cord wood," "our pact with the waterfront is as ancient as village life," "is visiting the beach and being toasted by the sun a suitable burnt offering?" "celebrate loudly this beachy keen delight we call Cobourg's harbour"

Ted Amsden Acceptance Speech

It was stanza room only in the Cobourg Council Chambers, October 3, when units of verse of the universe, the better poems and gardens set, the poetariet, and other elements of poetry circles and triangles, gathered to bear witness to the decree that Ted Amsden will be Cobourg's third Poet Laureate.

The Cobourg Poetry Workshop has posted a splendid interview of Ted here. Also the same page has a link to Ted's acceptance speech in ascii -- it is worth the read.

It is also worth a listen. After all, it did receive a stanza ovation.

BARD TO THE BONE

Click on image to enlarge

In Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Canada has at last produced a political leader worthy of assassination.

– Irving Layton, 1912-2006
– The Whole Bloody Bird, 1969

From Northumberland Today

In Ted Amsden, Cobourg has, at last, produced a poetical leader with a poem-grown Canadian voice worthy of inspiration. Canada long ago evolved and shucked its colonial constraints; likewise, Ted Amsden has now shucked the classic stuffiness of the better poems and garden set.

I can hear units of verse throughout the Universe applauding the appointment.

Bard to the bone, Ted Amsden is a word warrior wunderbard who will beat back the sub-verse activities of the Blandinistas (aka mediocrity mafia) of Blandland. The 101st Textual Assault Group of the Creative Intelligence Agency, armed with the latest surface-to-sentence similes awaits his poetically correct inspirations.

On behalf of the poetariet of the Imagine Nation of the Peoples Republic of Poetry, I congratulate Ted Amsden for his official appointment and we look forward to his ++expansionist activities on behalf of our poem and native land, the United Imagine Nations.

May he continue to practice unsafe text without a net.

Wally Keeler

Peoples Republic of Poetry

Jill Battson reads Courage by Anne Sexton

Cobourg Poet Laureate, Jill Battson, reads Courage, written by Anne Sexton, at the Inauguration of Cobourg Town Council in the Concert Hall of Victoria Hall, Cobourg, Ontario.

It is in the small things we see it.
The child's first step,
as awesome as an earthquake
- - Anne Sexton

rest of poem here