POETRY, NATURALLY

Nature Poems of Course

"If poetry comes not as naturally as the Leaves to a tree

it had better not come at all"

John Keats

Poetry Picnic Tables are integrated into all of the Town’s summer events. Fifteen tables in 2025, and 15 more scheduled for 2026.

When I began to take an interest in poetry, I immersed myself in the canon poets, the Romantics, Keats, Shelley, Byron, My favs. I was fresh from a stint in northern Ontario, north of Sault Ste Marie, my first glimpse of a real forest. All my young life I lived and played south of the 401. So a real forest had quite an impact while at the same time that poetry made an impact on me.

I say this to introduce Kate Roger’s outstanding curatorship of POETRY, NATURALLY, casting a call for poems, and they came in abundance, from a wide assortment of poets, some as far afield as Nova Scotia and British Columbia. So much poetry from so many poets, 31 of them, demanded two picnic tables to accommodate the poems.

As the first curator of the world’s first picnic table of nature poems, Kate named this ongoing series, POETRY, NATURALLY. This series enriches our Poemtown, already renown for its boardwalk along it’s natural beach park, for its reconciliation of an industrial harbour to one of natural recreation. Our Poemtown has a tree canopy like few other towns in Canada.

Our Poemtown is grateful for the presence of Kate Rogers, an empresario of poetry readings in the Centre of the Unit Verse, Toronto. She is a natural, with abundant enthusiasm.

The following poets contributed a poem to POETRY, NATURALLY. Click on the links to find out the accomplishments of each individual poet, and they are considerable. They all represent the best of diversity of mind and tongue.

Kim Goldberg, Nanaimo, BC

Susan Wismer, Collingwood, ON

Lisa Reynolds, Durham Region, ON

Vera Constantineau, Greater Sudbury, ON

Irina Moga, Toronto, ON

Emily De Angelis, Woodstock / Manitoulin Island, ON

John Drudge, Caledon, ON

Marc Nair, Toronto, ON

Blaine Marchand, Ottawa, ON

Josephine LoRe, Calgary, Alberta

Yvan N. Dalcourt, Sudbury, ON

Jean Eng, Toronto, ON

Jim Libiran, Scarborough, ON

Linda H.Y. Hegland, Clarence, NS

Laura Foreshew, Sudbury, ON

Chantel LaVoie, Kingston, ON

Kirsteen MacLeod, Kingston, ON

Donna Langevin, Toronto, ON

John Oughton, Toronto, ON

Karen Lesli, Salmon Arm, BC

Chad Norman, Truro, NS

J.C. Sulzenko, Wellington, ON

Richard Yves-Sitoski, Owen Sound, ON

Elisha Alladina, Toronto, ON

Marie-Lynn Hammond, Cobourg, ON

Kate Rogers, Cobourg, ON

Antony Di Nardo, Cobourg, ON

Catherine Richards, Cobourg, ON

Anne-Marie Jackson, Cobourg, ON

Wally Keeler, Cobourg, ON

Linda Hutsell-Manning, Cobourg, ON