Aeolus House launched JC’s new book of poetry, Life, after life—from epitaph to epilogue, on Sunday, November 3, 2024, in Toronto. The book is published under JC’s pen name, A. Garnett Weiss.
In this, JC’s third poetry collection, she turns words and phrases found in obituaries published in the Globe and Mail into over 60, five-line, memorable poems.
JC explains that reading obituaries was uplifting, not a ‘down’ experience. “I read them all—for the stories, for what they say about life rather than about death.” She likens the poems to an epilogue or afterword in the way each poem rounds out conclusions she drew from the prose articles and notices.
Keys at the end of the collection provide the given names of each person about whom JC learned. “Listing the names reflects my wish to honour the memory of each person about whom I read while respecting their privacy. The keys also acknowledge obituary articles to which I referred,” JC adds.
Poet John Barton said this about the collection:
“…Here, you shall encounter character studies, treatises, landscapes, syllogisms, and news clips, each reporting not on the life of a single individual, but on what I’d call “a representative life,” one constructed from the lived experience of countless deceased. Life, after life is perhaps enduringly not too different from our own bodies, in that it reads as if it too were composed of stardust.”
Ottawa’s Deborah-Anne Tunney made these observations:
“…Poetry brings us beyond the everyday; it can uncover the structures and undercurrents which define life. The same can be said for obituaries. A. Garnett Weiss finds in these gems of precision the essential elements of not merely one life, but life generally. This is a collection to read and savour, and then reread again for its concision, its tender apprehension of the lives examined, and for the sheer brilliance of its language.”
JC is grateful to both John Barton and Deb Tunney for their generous words.
JC also thanks Jean Van Loon and Christopher Fanning for their recent reviews of Life, after life.
Here are links to their comments about this innovative book of poetry:
https://periodicityjournal.blogspot.com/2024/12/jean-van-loon-life-after-life-by.html
https://pictongazette.ca/post/poems-of-many-voices
Copies of Life, after life are available through this website, in Toronto at Book City in the Beach, in Ottawa at Perfect Books and at Octopus Books, and in Picton at Books & Company.
See Order Books to order from this website.
A review by K.V. Skene
Life, after life – from epitaph to epilogue is the intriguing title of A. Garnett Weiss’s* new collection of ‘found’ poetry and an apt one, indeed. In addition, the evocative cover painting by Martin Soldat echoes and enhances its outward appearance. In her prologue Weiss confesses reveling in ‘words others have written’, exploring cemeteries, reading obituaries – for the stories they tell, the lives they reveal – every poem is indicative of her passion. My first reading of “Opening scene” left me breathless – and silently broke my heart …
Dancers shadow-play
with the elegance of animals
fearless of the wilderness
a risk close to
the heart of cruelty.
Every poem is a ‘found’ poem – each line and/or phrase culled by Weiss from death notices and obituaries published in the Toronto Globe and Mail and tenderly rendered into a singular epilogue – “Simple joys die hard” …
At Lookout Point
close to the world’s greatest tides,
ghosts hover – insistent, soft and shrill,
always in pursuit, shadowing
the richness of love given and received.
All poems are influenced and presented as tanka-like constructs. As tanka translates as ‘short song,’ I can definitely state that Weiss has distilled the found essence of individually lived lives – good, bad, or awful (In both the current and archaic sense of the word.) into five brief, musical lines as in “A curiosity”. . .
Caught in an accident of nature,
a forest mosaic
as inspired as
an orchid
in the snow.
In Life, after life I believeWeiss has selected and perfected the art of the ‘found’ poem. Stating that, I leave you with the penultimate – one of my favourites – “Ancient music” …
At twilight, restless hearts
return lakeside to gentlest
waterways and listen
for the coda
to the nightingale.
For the inquisitive and technical minded a key to each poem appears at the end of the collection. For personal enlightenment and/or sheer enjoyment I suggest you indulge yourself, acquire a copy and enjoy embracing the experience.
*A. Garnett Weiss is the pen name JC Sulzenko uses when writing centos and found poetry.
Bio notes for K.V. Skene
K.V.Skene’s poetry has appeared in anthologies and journals in Canada, US, UK, Australia, Austria, Ireland. India, Cuba and China. Skene’s latest manuscript, Seasonal Adjustments, placed third in the 2022 Don Gutteridge Poetry Award and was published in 2023, courtesy of Wet Ink Books. KV currently lives and writes in Toronto.