Alexis Kienlen has a number of strategies for battling depression—exercise, keeping busy and talk therapy, just to name a few. But perhaps some of her most profound healing came through writing.

Her latest book of poetry, 13, explores a variety of themes, including her childhood depression.

“I didn’t realize I had childhood depression until years later. I’ve suffered major depressions in my life—one major incidence at 20 and another at 30. One of the strategies I employed was learning as much about depression as possible,” she said.

Kienlen wanted to share her discoveries with readers in a creative way.

“13 was composed over about six months. I started with a few themes and wove them together,” she said. “I wrote sections on monsters, my childhood and another section about a relationship that I’d had while living in Vancouver.”

Kienlen currently makes her living as an agricultural reporter in Edmonton, but she writes both fiction and poetry in her spare time.

She said 13 is much stronger than her debut collection She Dreams in Red, which was published in 2007 by Frontenac Press.

“The book is both dark and funny,” she said. “Many of the poems deal with basic human emotions—love and loss.”

Kienlen said she hopes her work can reach those who have struggled with the same issues as she has.

“I really hope people enjoy the book. I’m hoping they see that there is beauty in darkness and can appreciate some of the themes,” she said. “I wrote this book because there were topics that I needed to talk about and stories that I needed to tell.”

On Tuesday, November 22, Kienlen will be doing a reading at Project Space gallery in Chinatown along with Vancouver poet Nikki Reimer, the current managing editor of EVENT magazine.

The pair first met at a book launch, and have kept in touch over Twitter.

Reimer will also be promoting her book, which was shortlisted for the 2011 Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Reimer’s book is a feminist narrative-disjunctive tour of Vancouver, illness and capitalism.

“Nikki is a fellow Frontenac poet, and we met at her reading in 2010. The publisher suggested that we team up for the reading, and I liked her and her work, so I was happy and excited to do so,” Kienlen said.

“Her work is very different than [mine]. She does a lot of clever word play,” she said. “But I really admire her work and it’s going to be nice to share the stage with another young, female poet.”