National Poetry Month--day 25

Canada's first Poet Laureate has become controversial, not because of what he has written (that would be an American phenomenon), but because of what he has not written. The Canadian government paid George Bowering $12,000, plus a $10,000 travel allowance per year, and at the end of two years, he had written eighty-seven lines.

Bowering visited school children, worked with other poets and launched a "poem of the week" program that was published on a website for about seventeen months. He also travelled throughout Canada to attend poetry poetry readings and promote the written word.

Pauline Michel is Canada's new Poet Laureate.

Here is your poem for today.