Work In Progress
Happiness Economics
Poetry meets parkour in this thoroughly modern look at the artist.
Will Thorne is a slightly published, stalled poet, married to Judy, a successful celebrity economist who doesn’t understand him, or poetry, at all. Will’s struggles with his art aren’t appreciated by his wife—or by his poet peers, all of whom are living below the poverty line while he appears to be squandering his talent in ergonomic chairs and rich leather interiors. Society doesn’t appreciate him either, because society—which has such a great, unrecognized need to listen to its poets—instead hangs on the every word of people like his wife, whose books are bestsellers.
Pressured by his destitute Governor General’s Award-winning poet acquaintance, Gord Mutic, Will starts a charitable organization, The Poets’ Preservation Society, to assist poets in financial need—Gord in particular. But in order to persuade his high-powered wife to get him the necessary funding, Will must make a devil’s bargain with her: he will write advertising slogans (a job she has found him), so that he can, in Judy’s words, contribute to society. Writing advertising slogans for toilet paper and spending his free time on the administrative work of The Poets’ Preservation Society, Will has neither the time nor the inspiration to finish his novel in poems, which he has been working on for close to ten years.
But then he discovers his muse…