When the trees came down no one knew how / to interpret the light. homeless / it bounces off glass sur*faces */ pierces the wandering eye

These poems walk streets and take snapshots of the impact financialization of our homes has on our sense of community and belonging.

Meandering through physical and philosophical materials – cement, memory, water, narrative, history, sand, light, concrete, and others’ voices – Daniela Elza documents this urgent moment. The reader winds through fragments amidst urban fragmentation. A sequence of triptych poems harkens to silos, skyscrapers, and streets. Readers here have a choice: they can read across the page or down. She channels Syrian architect Marwa Al-Sabouni, who says “the fabric of our cities is reflected in the fabric of our souls.” SCAR/CITY emerges from the Vancouver context to take on global issues of predatory finance and a market that mines homes for profit. It steps outside of binary conversations in favour of poetic reflection and interrogates a system that results in perceptible depravity and scarcity, which leaves us homeless metaphorically and literally.

French philosopher Gaston Bachelard says, “The space we love is unwilling to remain permanently enclosed … Space calls for action, and before action, the imagination is at work.” Amidst negotiations and advocacy in the fight for security of tenure and lease renewal, SCAR/CITY is a poetic call to action.

Daniela Elza grew up and lived on three continents before immigrating to Canada in 1999. Her poetry collections are the weight of dew (Mother Tongue Publishing, 2012), the book of It (2011), and milk tooth bane bone (Leaf, 2013). the broken boat is her fourth book. In 2011, Daniela earned her doctorate in Philosophy of Education from Simon Fraser University. She continues to contribute to the field of Poetic Inquiry. Her Masters degrees are in English Philology, and Linguistics (TESL/TEFL). In the literary community, Daniela facilitates writing workshops, mentors emerging writers, edits, and performs. She coordinates and hosts a reading series (Twisted Poets Literary Salon at Hood29 on Main St.), that shines a light on hundreds of published and emerging writers. Used to crossing geographic, cultural and semantic borders, Daniela’s work often dwells in liminal, and in between spaces between word and world, and the inherent possibilities for transformation through the attention. Daniela's poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net Anthology, and has won numerous contests. Her essay Bringing the Roots Home was nominated for the 2018 Pushcart Prize. She is currently exploring her passion for the personal and lyric essay. Daniela lives in Vancouver, and works at the Bolton Academy for Spoken Arts.

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