SCAR/CITY: (91 Hugh MacLennan Poetry Series)

When the trees came down no one knew how / to interpret the light. homeless / it bounces off glass surfaces / 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 hearkens 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.

About the Author :
Daniela Elza is the 2024 recipient of the Colleen Thibaudeau Award for Outstanding Contribution to Poetry. She lives in Vancouver, BC.

Review :
“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