Welcome It is Covid-19 era and life is unsettled and poetry can respond. Be safe. Be smart and write your responses. I am writing, editing and trying to stay fit walking, gardening and savouring the less pressured pace. I do miss gathering to hear p0ets and am trying to adjust to on-line meetings and events.
My current situation: I retired from the University of Victoria July 1 2016. In January 2016 I became Artistic Director of the Planet Earth Poetry reading series in Victoria BC after shadowing outgoing AD Yvonne Blomer from mid-August. It is an honour to have been entrusted with this role. We have completed, our 24th season of Friday night having shifted to online readings. Season 25 is functioning online. Hillside Coffee and Tea has closed so we will be venue hunting when public gatherings are again possible. Planet Earth Poetry is heading into a year of celebration - 25 years is worth making a fuss about and we have planned a Poets Caravan (with funding from the CRD), which was initially planned as an series of readings is now shifting to an online format as well. We live in hope we will gather face-to-face again but in the meantime we are finding alternatives - a digital open mike, Zoom sessions for readings and workshops, a Pandemic Poetry Contest and book to follow in late fall. Readings again online - visit the PEP website to see what is happening.
Spring 2021 update: A lot has changed - except Covid has not gone away. I stepped down as AD at Planet Earth Poetry at the end of December 2020 and the work has been taken over by a new co-AD team Leanne Boschman and Zoe Dickinson. This is lie a second retirement for me, except for the Poets Caravan. I have continued to assist with the filming of local poets reading their work at sites of their choosing. We are adding videos on an on-going basis. You can see our project and the wonderful Vancouver Island poets at the site listed below. PEP is grateful to our sponsors for funding of the Poets Caravan: The CRD Arts and Culture Support Services, The City of Victoria, The BC Arts Council and the Province of BC and in the next season (26) additional support from the Canada Council for the Arts.
My own life is quite different these days. I attend poetry readings and only am involved in organizing readings for Voicing Suicide. We have had readings in Victoria, Vancouver, Kelowna and Oakville Ontario with more to come – all online of course.
I continue to write and send out poems and manuscripts. Our landscaped front garden takes a portion of my time and like everyone else we are coping with the challenges of limited contact, stay-at-home restrictions and a different pace of life.
My new chapbook [klee-shays] undone, volume one (Nose in Book Publishing) is out and we launched it at PEP in September. It takes clichés and rethinks their possibilities. You can order a copy from me or from the publsiher. https://lindacrosfield.com/nibpublishing/klee-shays-undone-volume-1-daniel-g-scott/ $10 + $3 for postage in Canada Voicing Suicide: An anthology of suicide poems that I edited with an afterword by Dr. Katrina Jaworski (Ekstasis Editions) has now also been released. Over 60 poets from around the world are included. We had a launch via Planet Earth Poetry October 22nd. You can hear the reading at https://youtu.be/9tJpPz-wSeoand you can order the book from me ($24.95 plus postage) or form the publisher Ekstasis Editions http://www.ekstasiseditions.com
As part of John Barton, City of Victoria Poet Laureate's new work series you can hear several local writers reading a few minutes of our work. Listen to John Gould, Kathryn Mockler, Kyeren Regehr, and Daniel G. Scott read from their new books of poetry and prose:
In Kelowna,late February, I took part in a podcast with the Inspired Word Café on Voicing Suicide The link is https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-inspired-word-caf%C3%A9/id1531259537
My publications: black onion was published by Goldfinch Press and launched in December, 2012. A few prints copies are still available directly from me. Please contact me via email. pepoetry2@gmail.com or dgscott@uvic.ca
The Girls' Dairy Project: Writing ourselves into being by Shannon McFerran and Daniel G. Scott is now available via the University of Victoria Bookstore print-on-demand service: http://www.uvicbookstore.ca/general/journals.php
and is also be available electronically via: http://hdl.handle.net/1828/4482
terrains, published by Ekstasis Editions in 2014, is available from the publisher or me. This book is about inner and outer landscapes and journeys in them.
In 2015 I released a limited edition chapbook interrupted (Goldfinch Press) that is dedicated to Doreen Visser Kwak and explores two cancer journeys, mine and hers. It is also available from me.
Ekstasis Editions released gnarled love (2016). This collection of peoms is about love in all its complexity, challenges and beauty touching on friendships, lovers, families and life long relationships.
In 2016 I also published a chapbook entitled Street Signs (Goldfinch Press). It isa departure for me and a little more lighthearted fun inspired by a moment of reading a street sign while cycling and thinking that sign was a comment on life.
In 2018 Random Excess (Ekstasis Editions) came out. It is, as the title suggest a collection of a range of poems, includes two short memoire pieces and touches on many themes.
In December 2019 Aftertime (Ekstasis Editions) was released. The book explores one of my long standing interests - time and was written in response to retirement, aging and facing mortality. Available from the publisher or me.
