er, also goes by the stage — and CD — moniker, Ritallin. But he is also a two-month Haligonian, thanks to his participation in the 2005-06 federal election campaign in Halifax, where he assisted NDP MP, Alexa McDonough, to a fourth consecutive election victory.

Better still, Frankson / Ritallin has penned a chapbook memoir about his campaign experience, The Halifax Chronicles: Memoir of a Poet on the Hustings (10-milligram Productions, http://www.herald.ns.ca/Books/"http://www.ritallin.com").

This poet may be the first to draft such a chronicle. Yes, Anglo-Canadian poets like Dennis Lee, Dionne Brand, Roy Miki, and Mary di Michele have written estimable political verse, but none has been directly involved in the electoral process.

So what does the ex-Trudeau (Young) Liberal, once-political staffer, now card-carrying New Democrat, and 30-ish teacher think about Halifax, a city that interested him because of its Africadians (African-Nova Scotians)?

To begin, there are no complaints about "the wonderful living situation I have": "this beautiful old home on Robie Street across from the Commons (an open area close to the Citadel), complete with solid wood staircases, creaky floorboards, a tub with legs, . . . a wood- burning stove in the kitchen, and unlimited bags of Vector cereal I can eat whenever I have the urge."

This nice situation inspires Robie Relaxation. Herein music becomes "the tinkle of keys that unlock / my satisfaction, when jangled with / skill, linking the short black and long white / interwoven through a quintet of bold bars. . . ."

Soon, "Ritallin," discovers Halifax is "quite hilly," the Armdale Rotary is "a big roundabout-style intersection where people take turns narrowly missing each other," the citizens are "really nice," plus the air "smells cleaner than Ottawa’s winter smog."

But Frankson also notices — on his third day in Halifax — that the city suffers from "segregation" and "racial discomfort," a point he realizes when he receives, on the No.7 Robie Metro Transit bus, a look that tells him he has "crossed over on the wrong side of an invisible line. . . ."

Frankson maintains a positive vibe, though, even feeling pleased when an "africanadian lady" comments on his "slight accent."

As for the election itself, Frankson comments, "I’m proud to live in a democracy and would be even more proud of it functioned properly." He is peeved by the "free press" and its refusal to report adequately on the NDP campaign.

As the campaign winds down, Frankson takes in the casino and church in North Preston: an interesting combo. . . .

There’s more prose than poetry in The Halifax Chronicles but it’s all dexterously authored. It reminds me of Baso’s prose journals with their snippets of poetry.

New Brunswick poet Marilyn Lerch’s first collection of poetry, Moon Loves Its Light (Morgaine House, $15.95), reveals her to be a poet awake to everything: her locale, her family, her personal experience, all that impinges upon her consciousness. The result is a wide-ranging, expansive, endlessly surprising work.

Musing on the Tantramar marsh prompts her to announce a clarion poetic: "let in the flood, / break up, break out, a stallion smashing its stall . . . , / riot in language . . . , / kick-ass syntax . . . , / shake the ground with our eyes."

A portrait of "Nell" places this being before us in beautiful, oral imagery: "she was left in peace to . . . / say naw oraleans, honey all over the vowels," this having something to do "with being a lover / of women whom straight men forgave" and being able to "go / hmmm, hmmm in our ear and then crack us open with her smile."

Reading Tennyson at Dorchester Prison presents the poet yearning to find, in "one of those careless, wind-raked houses . . ., a wild-eyed man, fierce, / preoccupied, who makes tea, erupts poetry and pain, / dangerous only when misconstrued."

Also powerfully political, Lerch reminds us that "September 11," 1973, instrumented a U.S.-backed coup d’etat in Chile. The U.S.A. bombing of Hiroshima is conceived simply: "Dark stain of cedar dust / on the forest floor / a great tree’s final abstraction / like the shadow burned / in concrete in Hiroshima."

Please get this book. Read this poet.

George Elliott Clarke teaches literature at the University of Toronto. A Nova Scotia native, he won the Governor General’s award for poetry in 2001.