Thomas Leduc celebrates National Poetry Month with a poem in his pocket

If you bump into Sudbury's Poet Laureate this month, you can expect that he'll share a poem with you. 

April is National Poetry Month in Canada, and Thomas Leduc wants to take the opportunity to get people talking about — and maybe even in — poetic verse.

"Why not," quipped Leduc.  "Believe it or not, we probably share poetry all the time, whether we're sharing our favourite song, or we give greeting cards; you see pieces of poetry on Facebook all the time."

Leduc said the idea for "Poem in Your Pocket" is as simple as it sounds — just keep a favourite poem with you in April, and share it with people you meet.   

In an effort to kick off National Poetry Month in Sudbury, Leduc shared this original work on CBC radio's Morning North on Thursday:

My Northern Lake

Come with me, I'll show you beauty, I'll show you life,

I'll show you where the loon swallows the sun

and the moon sits in the eye of a snow-owl.

To where painted trees shimmer across the landscape,

setting the lakes on fire.

To where every stroke of our paddle

slices the water's skin

and pushes away our daily wounds.

Come with me, to where we slowly undo

the knots of our everyday lives.

To where we set our stresses free

to float in fresh water and bundle up

at the mouth of some river,

like a well-woven nest,

cradling our anxieties in its broken fingered hand.

Come with me, and we'll trickle through the dam

like blinking eyelashes in the sun.

We'll meet the day together,

we'll leave our past behind

and get baptized by the boreal.

I'll stir your soul and you can stir mine,

until our muscles hurt, until the sun sets,

until our breath turns to frost and the water to ice.

Come with me to my northern lake,

where time drifts away on a youthful dream

and simply sets us free, for a while.                     

- Thomas Leduc

Read more about Poetry Month festivities in Greater Sudbury, and about Thomas Leduc, here.