SCAR/CITY has arrived
Posted by Daniela Elza on Jul 24 2025 | Comment now »
SCAR/CITY arrived this week. She is a beauty. Each book has its own unique signature and emotion that accompanies the arrival. Usually an unexpected and strange feeling. This one is unlike any books prior to it. It took me four years to research, two years to write, and two years to publish. The two years to write it are part of the 4 research years. Long story. But I do tell the genesis of it in the Under Construction section at the back. It is the fasted book I have published and I am glad it is out as the urgency of the moment and the topic propelled it forward. This book is made and printed in Canada and is 100% human made.
I love the size: smaller than I expected. That explains why it was so hard to fit some poems on one page and wrangle the poems that had shapes and had to fit on one page and did not. I had to re-arrange and re-imagine some to live up to their best impact and form. I love the way the cover feels and how elegant the design. Thank you, Hugh MacLennan Poetry Series and all the staff for their dedication and patience that got this challenging book to the end of the publication and printing process.
For those who have wondered how to say or write the title: It is one word but also a play on that word. So SCARCITY and then a slash through it that creates the SCAR/CITY. As long as you use all lower case or all caps you are good. But please do not make it two words. Sorry, I keep challenging myself with language and keep messing with it to the point where I cannot really read all I put on the page and there are echoes and visuals you can only appreciate on the page.
The size makes SCAR/CITY a book that easily fits in a purse. I would have preferred the blurbs on the back not centred, but can live with it. The blurbs themselves are very special and close to my heart. Much gratitude goes out to Leilani Farha and Renée Sarojini Saklikar. These busy and politically engaged women took the time to read and think about the book and lend it some words and thoughts, which now live on the back cover.
A couple of days in, and SCAR/CITY already getting antsy and wants me to take her out to play.
You can order your copy here directly from the publisher to be sent directly to you:
Or order from your favourite local bookstore. I know that Massy Books has it up on their website here. Order from them if you are not sure who to order from.
But most of all i want to say: HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my beautiful, kind and full of love mom today.
Northern BC Book Tour + dates for Vancouver Island
Posted by Daniela Elza on Jul 11 2025 | Comment now »
In August I will be coming up North to launch both SCAR/CITY (MQUP, 2025) and my debut prose/essay/memior book: Is This an Illness or an Accident? (Caitlin Press, 2025).
And then we keep going till we get to the ferry.
When we land on Vancouver Island, we will read in four places, including Tofino, Nanaimo, and Victoria. More info to come as posters come together. But for now you can save the date/s. And it will be great to see you at any of these.
Tofino, BC, August 25th reading with Leanne Boschman at Community Hall is 351 Arnet Road. Event hosted by Tofino’s Poet Laureate Janice Lore.
Nanaimo, BC, August 26th, at the Harbourfront Library, launching with Kate Braid our hot off-the-press memoirs, The Erotics of Cutting Grass and Is This an Illness or an Accident?
Victoria, BC, August 27th, at Caffe Fantastico, reading with Kate Braid launching with Kate Braid our hot off-the-press memoirs, The Erotics of Cutting Grass and Is This an Illness or an Accident?
Victoria, BC, October 3rd, reading at Planet Earth Poetry reading series at Russell Books, 747 Fort Street, Victoria, British Columbia V8W 3E9
Click here to pre-order Is This an Illness or an Accident? from my publisher, Caitlin Press & bookstores near you. For a bookstore just click on the “shop local” button to pre-order the book from a bookstore near you.
Click here to pre-order SCAR/CITY from my publisher McGill-Queen’s University Press.
cover reveal and pre-orders
Posted by Daniela Elza on Jul 04 2025 | Comment now »
Here she is: my debut essay/memoir collection Is This an Illness or an Accident? The image is by Weston Fuller, and has lived with me for years. Cover design was done by my son. Thank you Caitlin Press for having faith in this book and getting out into the world.
Pre-orders are so important for small publishers. Click here to get to order Is This an Illness or an Accident?. The book will arrive in your hands, and in my hands, in August.
When asked, “But where are you really from?” Daniela Elza responds with a challenge: “How much time do you have?”
Is This an Illness or an Accident? is a timely and necessary read for anyone grappling with the notions of belonging, identity and symbiosis in an increasingly divided world.
You can also preorder directly from a local bookstore – When you go to the link for preorders, click on “shop local” button, enter your postal code, and pre-order from a bookstore near you.
Careful/Care-full Collaboration
Posted by Daniela Elza on Jun 10 2025 | Comment now »
About Place Journal published my essay On the Impossible Possibility of Collaborations in their Careful/Care-full Collaboration issue in May, 2025. Along side that they also featured three poem in collaboration with Leanne Boschman, Bonnie Nish, and Michelle Barker. Here is the link to them – scroll down to get to the poems.
Collab/orations: Three Poems-Between-Two
(three poems)
- the frame (written between Daniela Elza & Leanne Boschman)
- Echoes (written between Daniela Elza & Bonnie Nish)
- confessions (written between Daniela Elza & Michelle Barker)
Thank you to the editors to featuring this work. It is part of a long project which I have been working on slowly for over 16 years now. And one of these days will be delighted to see come together and find its permanent home in a book.
blurbs for SCAR/CITY are in:
Posted by Daniela Elza on Mar 22 2025 | Comments Off on blurbs for SCAR/CITY are in:
I am thrilled to share these blurbs for the book. Thank you Leilani Farha, and Renée Sarojini Saklikar for spending time with this book, and for lending your words to it.
“In SCAR/CITY, Daniela Elza creates a disturbing and very real portrait of urban displacement. Through fractured words and the use of space itself, she allows her readers to physically experience urban life as so many of us know it: the destabilization of community, nature, home, and human dignity in the face of greed-driven, relentless development. This is a work for our times, revealing the heavy human and natural toll exacted by the financialization of housing, documenting not just the physical erasure of neighbourhoods but also the deeper spiritual costs. Elza’s poetry will move you to reflect deeply, to mourn loss, and, through poetic persuasion, to defend what’s left.” Leilani Farha, The Shift
“A riveting collection, precisely right for this cultural moment: Daniela Elza’s assemblage of grief and rage is transmuted onto the page into beautiful lines that break, unfold, and then re-inhabit space. Shivers of recognition accompanied my reading. This is poetry as an invitation to both action and contemplation: What is home and how will it endure for us? How will we live in our cities, in places we can afford? These poems serve as way-finders for anyone passionate about land use, urban planning, and community survival.” Renée Sarojini Saklikar, author of Children of Air India
For more on the book and Preorders – click here.
scar/city poems make the CBC Poetry Prize Longlist
Posted by Daniela Elza on Nov 07 2024 | Comments Off on scar/city poems make the CBC Poetry Prize Longlist
The CBC Poetry Prize posted the long list today and a sequence of poems from my forthcoming poetry collection SCAR/CITY (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2025) made it to the long list.
Congratulations to all the rest of the poets on the list.
This is already a celebration.
Is this an Illness or an Accident?
Posted by Daniela Elza on Oct 28 2024 | Comments Off on Is this an Illness or an Accident?
My debut essay/memoir collection is now up for pre-orders on Caitlin Press website. It is quite exciting to put this work together into a book and to have my first non-fiction, non-poetry collection come out into the world. Though it is also a poetic, and lyrical collection in my eyes.
Is This an Illness or an Accident?
Expected to ship in March, 2025.
Here is the description on the publisher’s website. Book cover is forthcoming.
In her debut prose collection, Daniela Elza gives voice to the “third culture child”—born in one culture, raised in another, building her life in a third—capturing the whole through fragments of significance.
Description
When asked, “But where are you really from?” Daniela Elza responds with a challenge: “How much time do you have?”
Is This an Illness or an Accident? is a profound exploration of belonging, identity, and the question of home. Drawing on the bleak and occasionally absurd moments encountered in being forced to label oneself on document after document, Daniela Elza’s evocative memoir challenges the conventional narrative of cultural integration, focusing instead on the concept of the world citizen. Elza’s allegiance is not to a single country, but to the land, the trees, and soil of our shared planet, pushing back against the rising tides of nationalism and tribalism. The way nature cannot be hacked into its parts and expected to function, this book captures an ecology of being and identity. Not only do the facets of who we are need to collaborate within each of us in an ecosystem of being and thought, but we also need to collaborate amongst each other for our survival.
This book explores the conflicts and contradictions of what it means to belong, to work, and to find home. It questions societal practices, challenges the status quo, and insists on the complexity of our identities. With a curious and critical eye, Elza captures the beauty of the moment while refusing to be confined by others’ definitions.
Through her unique perspective, Elza reframes the conversation around identity, urging us to see ourselves as wholes, far more interesting and intricate than our separate parts. Is This an Illness or an Accident? is a timely and necessary read for anyone grappling with the notions of belonging, identity and symbiosis in an increasingly divided world.
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On the site there is a drop down SHOP LOCAL menu, where you can preorder the book at your local bookstore, or your favourite independent and neighbourhood bookstore.
Thank you to The Queen’s Quarterly (times four), subTerrain, GRAIN Magazine, About Land Journal, Motherwell, UNTIL Magazine, and Mother Tongue Publishing for taking a chance on these essays. And thank you Caitlin Press for seeing them through in a book collection.
SCAR/CITY
Posted by Daniela Elza on Sep 16 2024 | Comments Off on SCAR/CITY
My new poetry collection SCAR/CITY is forthcoming in the Spring of 2025 with McGill-Queen’s University Press, in the Hugh MacLennan Poetry Series. I wished this year to get two books accepted and the wish came true. The other book (more on that later in another post) is my debut prose collection. For now you can preorder SCAR/CITY here:
Description:
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.
stones we tend to
Posted by Daniela Elza on Jun 05 2024 | Comments Off on stones we tend to
My Review of We Follow the River by Onjana Yawnghwe, ( Emotional Truths) is now up on The British Columbia Review of Books (previously known as The Ormsby Review).
