By Wally Keeler
The weather was as blustery as a pack of slam poets when the first Picnic Table Anthology for Cobourg’s municipal parks was unveiled in the Cobourg Ecology Garden Oct 27 last. The picnic table hosted five poems that had been laser-etched into the tabletop. POETCHRY is the organization that does the etching.
The Cobourg Ecology Garden serves Cobourg as both concierge and sentry to the natural West Beach. The Ecology Garden in its past, has hosted a Poetry Picnic, Earth Day ceremonies and the reading of poems. It is a place that is both serene and sublime, a place for the poetical, a place for eloquence.
So it was a natural choice to host the first municipal Picnic Table Anthology of poetry. A call for submissions for poems engaging ecology resulted in 29 poems received. The Cobourg Ecology Garden Committee members, who had never dealt with ‘poetry’ since high school, were now reading it for the purpose of selection what they felt best represented the values of the Cobourg Ecology Garden. They selected five poems; two by Robert Priest, one each by Marie-Lynn Hammond, Felicity Sidnell Reid and Wally Keeler.
Cobourg’s third Poet Laureate Emeritus, Ted Amsden, emceed the event, said, “…the mandate is to give the public easy access to elevated language and feeling, the poetic experience, in a phrase. Today’s table is the first of what we hope will be many more.”
Indeed, there will be many more.
Richard Livesay, Chair of the Cobourg Ecology Garden Committee, was effusive about the picnic table, saying, “Gardens and nature inspire poets … and poets inspire us. It’s my most sincere wish that the poems on this table last for many years and generate inspiration to create new poems that in turn inspire people to appreciate and contribute to our garden. Poetchry has a great vision for our town – more tables and more space for all the poems. And perhaps more tables beyond Cobourg – who knows.”
Cobourg is the first municipality IN THE WORLD to embark on a project to publish poetry on picnic tabletops. The very first picnic table of poetry IN THE WORLD was produced here in Cobourg in 2022 and graced the front of Cobourg’s only independent bookstore, Let’s Talk Books, before it was shipped off to grace a writer’s retreat in southern Ontario. This picnic table of poetry was also the inspiration of the WORLD’S FIRST POETRY PARADE down the main street of Cobourg.
The following year, the U.S., Library of Congress, Poet Laureate, Ada Limón initiated a program called, You Are Here; the installation of seven picnic tables in seven National Parks. The poems are etched into a slab of steel and installed into the ground, costing thousands of dollars each. In Cobourg, the picnic tables, real picnic tables made entirely of wood, will be brought to Woodsworth Wordshop where the etching happens, and then removed by the Town when finished for the next table.
The Cobourg Ecology Garden inspired Jackie Chapman Davis, Manager of Culture for the Town of Cobourg, to ask one simple question: can POETCHRY produce ten picnic tables of poetry in time for National Poetry Month in April? YES! So, it is declared; so, it will be done.
Cobourg has a rich legacy of poets and poetry, including Susanna Moodie, who had stepped off the boat in Cobourg in 1832, and wrote Roughing It In the Bush, which went on to inspire Margaret Atwood, and other Canadian poets. Another poet with residential and educational roots in Cobourg was Archibald Lampman, regarded as the leader of the Confederation Poets who came of age when Canada came of age as a nation.
Watch for the Spring Offensive of Eloquence coming to a park near you. As the one-colour regime recedes for the multicolourfulism of spring, picnic tables bearing the voices of elevated language will be spread throughout Cobourg’s parks, so that every neighbourhood has an example of eloquence within walking distance. The ambition? To make Cobourg: Canada’s Poemtown.
Poetry strengthens the immune system to resist infectious mediocrities.
Author: Pete Fisher
Has been a photojournalist for over 30-years and have been honoured to win numerous awards for photography and writing over the years. Best selling author for the book Highway of Heroes - True Patriot Love
