Lots of people got angry when the provincial government announced it set aside $80 million in support of a new building for the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. Healthcare is in crisis, they say, and spending money on something as unnecessary and luxurious as art at this time is a very bad idea. To further explore why art matters from a societal point of view, and indeed functions as a major economic engine all on its own, I met with writer and St. Mary’s University Art Gallery director Robin Metcalfe, who has thought deeply about these matters.

This weekend’s poem, night cemetery by Robin Metcalfe, was inspired by the ghastly murder of John William Tha Din in 1988 in the Halifax Camp Hill Cemetery, a well known gay cruising area at the time. It’s from Writing the Common, a wonderful collection of poems about the Halifax Commons by a great bunch of local poets, published in 2013, by Gaspereau Press.