daniela elza

About Me

I am a poet. I live in Vancouver with my husband and two children. I keep a blog, a home, and a journal. I like to travel, drift, and wonder, follow the steps of words to see where they take me. Currently I am working on my doctorate in Philosophy of Education, and am putting together my first full length manuscript. The crows want to have a say in it.

Why do you write?

I write to surprise myself. I write to figure things out. I write because it makes me and what surrounds me more complete, more coherent, more resonant. I write to hear the music and thoughts of the world.
I can be inspired by many things. By the many poets I read, by philosophers, by my friends with their daily conundrums, by my children (who are philosophers in their own way), by scientific discoveries, by events.

Nature is one of my most influential mentors. I like to listen to the numerous ways in which nature thinks. I study the sky, listen to crows, talk to trees.

Any favorite authors? Books?

it is hard to just mention a few names, perhaps unfair to the many I will miss. A few that jump out are Robert Bringhurst, Tim Lilburn, Gaston Bachelard, Maria Rainer Rilke, Anne Michaels, Natalie Goldberg, Jorge Luis Borges, Paul Ricoeur, Wislawa Szymborska, Aislinn Hunter, Patrick Lane, Jan Zwicky, Roo Borson, Alison Pick, Sue Sinclair, the list goes on.