By Cecilia Nasmith/Today’s Northumberland
A local initiative will be part of the festivities Sunday at Toronto’s Word On The Street festival, representing Cobourg’s Poetchry project Picnic On Poetry.
This project came to council last year through a presentation by Wally Keeler, the idea being to etch poetry on the picnic tables the town deploys in its parks and waterfronts each summer.
For Word On The Street on Sept. 28, poetry by Cobourg and Toronto poets will be on the table that will be unveiled downtown in Pecaut Sqauare (the northeast corner of the overall playground, Keeler said, in the food court).
Cobourg will also be represented by Mayor Lucas Cleveland.
Cobourg poets represented in the project include Keeler, Antony DiNardo, Kim Aubrey, Kate Hoogendam, Marie-Lynn Hammond, and Kate Rogers, as well as two Poet Laureate Emeriti – Ted Amsden (2011-2018) and Jessica Outram (2019-2022).
Toronto poets include Kate Marshall-Flaherty, Jim Johnstone, Robert Priest and Jennifer Hosein, as well as current Poet Laureate Lillian Allen. In addition, Iranian-Canadian poet Banoo Zan is represented.
“The festival organizers were quite impressed with the poets that have their poems on the table,” Keeler said.
“It is a good cross-section of creme de la creme poets.”
A press release issued in conjunction with the news describes Picnic On Poetry as a collaborative project between Poetchry and the town, using laser technology for the etching. Sixteen such tables were part of summer 2025, “ranging from nature poems, women’s poems, Canadian canon poets, student poems, peace poems and poems from the disabled community etched onto an accessible table that now resides in the Cobourg Ecology Garden.”
While other art forms have galleries, concert halls and other venues, poetry “all too often resides on neglected library shelves, overlooked in favour of mysteries, cookbooks, history, biography.
Performatively, poetry is relegated to poetry readings, often in back bars, attended mostly by ambitious poets.”
Picnic On Poetry put poetry where people play, eat and relax, accessible to all.
It’s an idea that could be run with in a variety of interesting ways – a showcase of a publisher’s poets on a table in their lunchroom, a bar dedicating a table to bawdy limericks, a school spotlighting its students’ work.
“Each Parliamentary Poet Laureate should have their own poetry etched onto a picnic tabletop and distributed throughout the nation’s national park system. The Province of Ontario could commission a table for each of Ontario’s Poets Laureate and distribute them in Provincial Parks,” the bulletin suggested.
And for communities that do have Poets Laureate, what better venue than the picnic tables their people enjoy as a vehicle to introduce art and literature into everyday public spaces to “spark curiosity, inspire creativity and foster a deeper appreciation for language and local culture.
“Poetry, especially if it reflects local history, values or voices, strengthens a sense of place and pride. It can celebrate community stories or highlight local poets, creating a unique identity for the area.”
