JC Sulzenko

We recently asked Author, Poet, and County Arts Member JC Sulzenko to give us more insight into her writing practice and upcoming projects. Her poetry has appeared in anthologies and journals, in print and online, either under her name, or as A. Garnett Weiss, the pseudonym she uses when writing centos and found poems. Her cento, “For our many moods, there is nothing like a lantern,” won First Prize – Poetry in this year’s Wind & Water Writing Contest.

JC will be very involved with County Arts this fall. First, she will lead Between Beauty and Loss, a two-day workshop incorporating collage and found poetry to explore the dialogue between the two. She will also be lending her expertise as a Mentor in the very first County Arts Mentorship Program!

Please describe your artistic practice in a sentence or two:

Creating new work is at times disciplined, at times free-fall. A sound, scent, sight, or experience can trigger a starting point and I write what comes, which I live with until I sense how to shape the words to give them the best chance of being understood in the new poem the way I intended.

What have you worked on recently that has you excited, either personally or professionally?

Developing the program for the October 14 & 15 County Arts Lab workshop, Between Beauty and Loss, at which I will guide participants to explore where to find poetry through crafting a visioning collage and then writing found poetry linked to that act of creation.

Where in the County do you find the most creative inspiration? This could be a place, fellow artist, arts event, etc.!

In moments of quiet, where I tell my ‘to-do’ list take a hike, and I give my heart and mind freedom to confer.

Which tools and/or resources have helped you the most in your artistic career? These can be either physical or intellectual in nature.

My personal and professional life has been enriched in many ways by working with and writing collaboratively with Carlton Place poet Carol A. Stephen whose introduction to the cento let me to fall headlong into the joy of writing these found poems. Books by Natalie Goldberg, Anne Lamont and Mary Oliver. Working with publishers such as Brian Flack and Allan Briesmaster.

What advice would you give to artists just starting out in their careers?

Just start somewhere. Don’t let the ‘little critic’ most artists have to live with dissuade you.