Mr. Speaker, April marks National Poetry Month, providing us with an opportunity to recognize the centrality of poetry to Canadian identity and culture. In that spirit, I am honoured to welcome to the House today a much celebrated Canadian, Ms. Suzanne Buffam.
Ms. Buffam is an award-winning Canadian national treasure, having been awarded the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and the CBC Literary Award for Poetry, as well as having been shortlisted for the prestigious Griffin Poetry Prize.
In quintessentially Canadian fashion, Ms. Buffam's first foray into poetry was inspired by a family canoe trip to the Yukon while she was in primary school. She has certainly come a long way.
Over the weekend The Globe and Mail described her latest collection of poetry, A Pillow Book, as “...one of the most finely controlled, subtly structured books of Canadian poetry in recent memory....”
This evening Ms. Buffam's contributions to the poetic canon will be celebrated at Christ Church Cathedral in Ottawa—