12/17/2025
Bob Ledrew is a member of the Cobourg Poetry Workshop, and is part of a group that offers "Short Order Poetry" at public events of various kinds in Port Hope and the nearby area.
Now a resident of Cobourg, Ontario, Bob grew up in a small Cape Breton town where the more courageous kids jumped onto ice floes in the harbour in the spring, when the ice came in.
Like all good Cape Bretoners, he began to head west in young adulthood, first to Halifax, then Ottawa, and now here ... .. in Northumberland County, where he’s been pleased to find friends and collaborators on various dastardly plans, as well as some prime cycling roads.
Words were always at the heart of Bob’s life: he wrote Ray Bradbury a fan letter at 13. In University, he ended up driving Earle Birney around Wolfville, introducing Timothy Findley for a reading, buying Alistair MacLeod single-malt whisky and writing and editing student papers at two universities. And when Bob decided that he was better off being a client than a clinical psychologist… he did the natural thing and became a freelance magazine writer and broadcaster. That led to a career in public relations and a continued love affair with words, although more as a tool of persuasion than of self-exploration.
Since moving to Cobourg and semi-retiring, writing for himself has become a focus. Why? Less pressure, good therapy, a ear problem that’s meant playing music is less pleasurable, and less need to care what anyone else thinks (although he still does care). It’s a different process from writing in his working life, perhaps more difficult and more honest at the same time. Maybe, he thinks, it’s the honesty that makes it difficult.
Becoming part of Ted Staunton’s critique group in Port Hope has helped take the idea of producing passable work from an idle thought to a goal to work toward.
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Bob has published poetry in Bywords out of Ottawa, and was a PR columnist for CBC Radio for the better part of a decade, was a host of current affairs and arts programming at CKCU-FM for a number of years, and published countless magazine stories during his journalistic career,
He’s currently working on a couple of novel-length manuscripts, has written a number of short stories, and posts to his “New Poem A Day” Substack as close to once a day as is possible.
When he’s not writing, Bob spends time working as assistant manager at a local fair-trade retailer, riding bikes or reading.
