He is a master photographer. A writer. Journalist. And poet. But not just any poet. To hear him read his own work alerts all the senses. From the moment he approaches the microphone, he has the attention of his audience. Not that he needs the microphone. His voice and motion render it obsolete, the space around it becoming his stage. The poet in question is Ted Amsden, whose photographs have graced the pages of this newspaper and it's predecessors, the Cobourg Daily Star and Port Hope Evening Guide, as well as Go! Magazine, for over 20 years. Mr. Amsden will be one of the featured poets reading at the inaugural Poetry'zOwn Weekend Festival to be held in Cobourg from April 16 through April 19.

"When I was a student of writer Michael Ondaatje at Glendon College, I thought I'd write my first book of poems at age 26. Ondaatje read the book and said it sounded like a beer commercial which, more or less, took the wind out of my persona as a poet for 15 years." says Amsden. It has returned though with great strength, his recent poetry taking everyday themes and situations and turning them inside out, grabbing the attention of his audience not only by the strength and twists and turns of his words, but through his delivery. "Ted Amsden is a person who could go back in time to the late 1950s New York City or early 60s San Francisco and everyone would recognize him as a true poet." says James Pickersgill, who created the POW!Festival. "He lives by a beat. Once you read his work or, better still, experience one of his readings, you just know he has his own voice."

"He's not the kind of poet who stands still and relies just on words." adds Cobourg's Poet Laureate, Eric Winter. "His whole body enacts, delivers, the poem. It's the closest thing to rap that you will ever get from a mature product."

"He performs his work. Gives it a facet not there when you see it on the page." says Pickersgill. Amsden demurs. "I would like to be a performance poet. I have a long distance to go though."

"His poems are full of surprises." counters Winter. "He sees things we don't see and he tells us so. What makes any poem worth listening to is its revelation of the unexpected. Ted is full of that."

Following his graduation from York University with an Honours BA in political science and English Literature, Amsden did stints as Texaco gas truck driver, creative copy writer, owned and operated an aerobics studio, a small clothing company in Mexico, and took up photography out of creative desperation after abandoning a novel he's worked on for 5 years. What inspires him to put pen to paper? "Recently I've been going through a quiet writing period - the poetry ship dead in the water - but then, suddenly, it's all hands on deck and I know I've just been waiting to copy down ideas, broadstroke thoughts ,and, most importantly, blending lines that reference my experience, the outside world."

Those ideas will be expressed on Saturday April 18, in an evening not to be missed, at Meet At 66 King Street East in Cobourg, starting at 6.30pm. Also on the program are poets Diana Kuprel, Marek Kubisa and "Wordmusic", a poetry recitation by actor David Calderisi. Admission is $6.