It’s been a week since Swoon: A Literary Evening of Love, Sex, and Chocolate, and I’m still feeling silly with happiness! Thank you so much to everyone who came out and made Swoon such a lovely event. It was truly a privilege to host alongside Jeffrey Ricker, and to introduce the audience to such fine writers. The Swoon website will update with photos as soon as our intrepid Swoon photographer delivers us the oodles of fun pictures he took for us! In the meantime, you can always check out the photos that I took on my iPhone and tweeted at @swoonvancouver.

Me at Swoon on April 4th. Photo credit: Jeffrey Ricker

What have you been doing to celebrate National Poetry Month? I gave myself the challenge to write a new poem every day for the entire month of April. I’m on day 11 and I’m having lots of fun. Especially on work days, when I don’t have time to sit and craft a poem for a long amount of time, it’s interesting to see what kind of material emerges when I am working with a time limit.

In the spirit of National Poetry Month, I’ll recommend a poem to you! I noticed that today’s Poem of the Day Podcast at Poetry Foundation is Robert Hass’s “Misery and Splendor,” which is from one of my favourite books of poetry ever, Human Wishes. You can listen and read to the poem here. 

Speaking of poetry and poets… Gillian Whigmore, a poet who lives in my hometown of Prince George, BC, recently launched her first book of fiction. Last Saturday I went to the Vancouver launch and heard her read from Grayling. The novella is set in northwestern B.C.’s Dease River, and follows Jay along a canoe trip that gets more emotionally complicated when circumstances force him to take on a companion. It’s beautiful writing, and I can’t wait to read it. It’s on my nightstand along with a select few other books from my “to read” list. Also on this list are two Swooners: Garth Martens with his debut collection of poetry, Prologue for the Age of Consequence, and Jeffrey Ricker with his new YA novel, The Unwanted.