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I've been oddly fascinated with Canadian poetry lately. I've been browsing the Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature and the Oxford Book of Canadian Verse, two books I own as a relic of dating a Canadian English major many, many moons ago. All we hear about is the overrated Margaret Atwood. Nothing about the amazingly versatile Michael Ondaatje (I swear, I'm not just that English Patient guy), whose "The Cinnamon Peeler" is the most erotic thing written in the English language since "To His Coy Mistress". And the bizarre b p nichol and bill bissett. And this poor guy I'm reading about right now, Jack Thompson, who lived in a farmhouse in the New Brunswick marshes. His first collection, At the Edge of the Chopping There Are No Secrets, was released to critical not-acclaim, then he got divorced, then his farmhouse burned down, destroying all his manuscripts, and then he committed suicide with pills and booze when he finished his second book. Poor guy. Seriously, don't you want to give the guy a posthumous hug?