Presentation to Cobourg Town Council
by James Pickersgill, Monday, March 9, 2009

Thank you Mayor Delanty, councillors and members of the Town staff for allowing us to attend this evening as a delegation.

My name is James Pickersgill. I am here this evening to announce to Town Council that there will be a weekend-long poetry festival held in Cobourg during the month of April.

Our Festival is called Poetry'z Own Weekend. We like to refer to it by its initials, so, for short, it is called: the POW! Festival.

In Canada, April has been National Poetry Month each year since 1999 when it was established by the League of Canadian Poets. April as Poetry Month is also recognized in other countries such as the United States and Great Britain.

Across Canada, communities and businesses participate in Poetry Month through Poetry Readings, book displays and other events such as Festivals.

The POW! Festival is Cobourg's way of celebrating National Poetry Month.

I have given each of you a copy of our promotional flyer. You can watch for these posters to begin to appear. I would like to thank Mark Clement who is here tonight in the audience for designing these and for creating our web site.

This evening, I am also here to tell you that people in other places across Ontario and elsewhere in Canada look at Cobourg as a "go to" place for poetry. Within 7 days of initially announcing this weekend Festival, we were able to book:
.................12 Guest Poets, 8 local Poets, a Juno-nominated Children's songster,
...................3 prestigious Canadian publishers to speak at a panel discussion,
...................2 people who have translated poetry into English, and,
......................a professional actor who will perform an extended recitation from memory.

A separate but parallel aspect of POW! will feature readings by Guest Poets to students in local high schools during the afternoon of Friday, April 17 and on Monday, April 20, 2009.

When we say we are going to put on a poetry event in Cobourg, people line up to participate and they line up very quickly.

This reputation that Cobourg has as a poetry place is largely to the credit of the Town Council. Twelve years ago, Council made the decision to create the position of Poet Laureate. Eric Winter was appointed to fill that position. He has proudly held the title ever since.

Mr. Winter has been very active in the role. He is a founder of the Cobourg Poetry Workshop, which has been in existence for close to ten years now. This group is called the "Cobourg" Poetry Workshop because all its activities take place here, not because all its members are from here. The Poetry Workshop attracts members from here but also from Port Hope, from the shores of Rice Lake, from Prince Edward County, from Belleville and so on.

Each month for the past 7 years, this group has run a Poetry Reading that is open to the public. Typically this very successful series of Readings brings a Guest Poet to town and when they go around to other places to present their work, these Poets spread a positive view of what we have going on here in Cobourg. This great reputation is definitely what made booking our Festival such an easy task.

So, there is a chain of events that can be seen:
- the Festival springs from the monthly series of poetry readings,
- the poetry readings come from the Poetry Workshop,
- the Poetry Workshop exists because Cobourg has a Poet Laureate,
- Cobourg has a Poet Laureate because in July, 1997
- our Town Council was wise enough to create that position.

Having a Poet Laureate makes the Town of Cobourg relatively unique. As far as I am aware, besides Cobourg, only 4 other places in Ontario and 8 other municipalities in the rest of Canada currently have a Poet Laureate.

The POW! Festival has partial funding from the Canada Council for the Arts. This National Poetry Month funding from the Canada Council comes through the League of Canadian Poets.Also, some local businesses have stepped forward to offer sponsorship of certain parts of our poetry weekend. We really appreciate this assistance with the financing of the Festival.

As a result of that assistance, we are not requesting any funding from Town Council but I am asking that you consider a resolution to show recognition of National Poetry Month by declaring Thursday, April 16 to Sunday, April 19, 2009 as "Poetry Weekend in Cobourg."

For the next part of our delegation's presentation, I would like to introduce you to Cobourg's Poet Laureate, Eric Winter. > Eric's presentation