The poetry of Garth Martens is inspired primarily by his environment.

Never mind blue skies, trees and oceans. Martens finds the people and places that surround him to be far a better source material.

Take Winter Night, the poem Martens wrote for the Times Colonist. The protagonist is a co-worker from Martens's days in commercial construction, a hammer-and-nail type whose "combination of bad luck and stupidity" occasionally obscured his upside as a person.

His friend's life -- one full of either illness or injury, thanks to the hard-scrabble working conditions in construction -- was waiting to be explored by Martens, a published poet and University of Victoria grad student.

There's what Martens calls a "mythological spin" to this and other poems in his in-progress collection of writing, which is doubling as his master's thesis.

Martens, 27, is due to present the as-yet-untitled collection to UVic faculty next year, but he's still struggling.

"I might have been better served to write it as a novel," he said. "There are recurring characters, and it might have enough of a plot to be called a novel, but I'm not sure yet."

Martens worked six or seven days a week in construction, which included building everything from skyscrapers to schools to retirement homes. These days, he's doing more hanging out than hammering nails. That's the lone downside of writing full-time, Martens said.

"I've been drinking lattés and getting soft and skinny again. [Construction] wasn't always challenging mentally, but it was a great time to have ideas circulating."

Of his professional accomplishments Martens is most proud of Jealously, a poem he wrote for the anthology Leonard Cohen: You're Our Man. In the collection inspired by Cohen's poetry, Martens' work joined poems by Margaret Atwood and other famed writers.

"He is one of my biggest influences," said Martens, who is an intern at The Malahat Review and on the board of directors at Open Space Arts Society.

To promote the Cohen collection, the Montreal publisher is hoping to stage a cross-continent bus tour featuring the contributing writers. Martens is certain Cohen won't be involved, but he has already had his time with the grand master of Canadian music. He has seen him twice in concert, including once in Toronto, a trip that required Martens to fly from Victoria at considerable cost.

"Sometimes you have to be spontaneous," he said. "I don't have dogs or kids, so what's the worst that could happen?"

At the very least, Martens probably got a story out of it.