Alden Nowlan was not the literary figure described in Encyclopaedias. He grew up dirt-poor in the province of Nova Scotia and lived most of the rest of his life in New Brunswick. He quit school in the middle of grade five (like many working class Maritime boys of his generation) and became, in the opinion of many, Canada’s greatest poet. People’s Poet: Alden Nowlan brings Alden Nowlan’s poetry to light on the screen. Seamlessly intertwining archival footage, home movies, photographs, and original Canadian artwork with Nowlan’s poetry, narration and rare audio excerpts, People’s Poet translates Nowlan’s words to video for all to experience. Alden Nowlan’s poems are rooted, like those of Robby Burns and the songs of Hank Williams, in his personal experience, undiffused by erudition or classical literary symbolism and allegory. Rather, they achieve universality by the very concreteness of their imagery, based on the events, people and landscapes that were intimately part of Alden Nowlan’s life.