#daniela elza

[clatteriing]

➤ grief returns     like a fifth season in our lives.     slips quietly through the door in a pomegranate        of premonitions. in persimmons of disaffection. talking becomes too much effort. laughter ceases. you see it in the emptiness of things. even the bowls in the house remind you of it. I keep filling them with fruit for comfort. then the cherry blossoms bloom with it the birds keep growing louder with it the crows caw their warnings at me follow me around the yard                  as if it is I who has stopped listening. ➤ one way and for lease we paint our façades in recognizable     acceptable colours. boarded and shuttered inside ourselves. I never knew     not loving you   was  an option. we are busy fighting the small crimes the big ones are beyond us now. the widows with the views are elsewhere. the mountains you imagined curious and peeking have looked away.     stay       at a safe distance. the sunbeams that readily spread themselves like rugs on our afternoon floors have been issued       restraining orders. the doors of your shock open wide.

serving time (in the burbs ii) by Daniela Elza

[militarytrash]

suddenly       I want to be     invisible.                         but you are still holding my hand.

Daniela Elza “Life as Conceptual Art” featured in PRISM International

[afteryoupoems]

like fish in the fullness of their stream* by Daniela Elza

For Kate Braid a fine summer day—                           a blank page between us. you brought us to this cedar fountain                 taught us how to drink our fill how a line breaks  what is said                                      to make it better. in the precision of syllables                       we catalogue human error speak to what is  ill                                     forgotten                                                                dead. these words      that are also   the music the ruffled feathers of           darkness. it was not just   drawing Emily to the page but how paint   curves     around emptiness how the sky ripples through                              our diminished days                      hospital rooms the tensions between two— a longing that sifts inward to the bone. how turning left to the ladies does not mean                              we will be appeased. how between the hammer        and the nail we emerge         as well-mannered storms negotiate     the crooked ultimatums of fear.                                                    write poems.                                     love. journeywoman    we are    still                                               far from home. still untameable                          fluid                                                unformed here           where                          words   like hands                                                  heal us. *Note: The title of this poem, as well as words in italics (some modified) come from lines and titles in Kate Braid's work.

[afteryoupoems]

the music we are     is* by Arlene Ang

After Daniela Elza

                       space                                     strummed into breaths            in the wake                           of crows                                                  their wings             fanning out like hands                       shape the dimensions            of sky & sound                                this wind                                   ~ borrowed tempo ~                                is a directive                           to let go                                                   rise above           the music we are 

                                     break away from the weight               of holding on                                      to                                            ~ us ~ * from Daniela Elza’s poem, “Trans/late” in Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets, edited by Valerie Fox and Lynn Levin (Texture Press, 2013).

[bookclubbuddy-blog]

the weight of dew by Daniela Elza

Daniela Elza has lived on three continents, crossed numerous geographic, cultural and semantic borders. She was born in Bulgaria, and grew up in Nigeria. After earning her Masters in English Philology from Sofia University, she taught in England for a year, then acquired her second Masters (in Linguistics) at Ohio University. In 1999, she immigrated to Canada and has since lived in Vancouver with her husband and their two children.

  Elza's work has been published in more than fifty literary and peer-reviewed publications. Her poems have been anthologized in Rocksalt (Mother Tongue Publishing, 2008), Verse Map of Vancouver (Anvil Press, 2009), Van Gogh’s Ear (The French Connection Press, Paris), Close to Quitting Time (Ascent Aspirations Publishing, 2011), Fields of Green (Hampton Press, 2009), Poetic Inquiry (Sense Publishers, 2009), 4 poets (Mother Tongue Publishing, 2009),The Wild Weathers(Leaf Press, 2012) and are forthcoming in Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here (PM Press), The Art of Poetic Inquiry (Backalong Books, 2012), A Heart of Wisdom(Peter Lang Publishing, 2012), Enpipeline Anthology (Creek Press, 2012) andThe Pacific Poetry Project: An Anthology of Three Cities (Ooligan Press, 2013).   Her interests lie in the gaps, rubs, and bridges between poetry, language, and philosophy. She dwells in the spaces that call us to attention, to an embodied awareness of the poetry that is our lives–poetry as a way of knowing. In this process she not only finds the boundary between philosophy and poetry blurs, but that writing becomes a way of being, a vehicle for transforming consciousness, a place we loosen our grip on the world to invite a more intimate connection with it.   In 2011 Daniela Elza received her doctorate in Philosophy of Education from Simon Fraser University and launched her first eBook, The Book of It (now also available in print). the weight of dew (Mother Tongue Publishing, 2012) is her first full length poetry collection. To learn how you can win a copy of Daniela Elza's book the weight of dew please visit Getting 2 Know Daniela Elza at BookClubBuddy.com