From the slave camps of WW II-era Poland to family resettlement in the lower Fraser Valley, Jordan Scott traces his grandfather's journey in a series of poems drawn from his grandfather's journals for Silt (New Star, 2004). Scott graduated from Creative Writing at University of Calgary and published two previous poetry chapbooks, Mere Mismemory (Delusional Books, 2001) and A Walking History of Wladyslaw's Body in Parts (Housepress, 2002). His 2008 book Blert is about stutterers. Scott has struggled with stuttering all his life, and this book is his transformation of stutter into art.

Decomp (Coach House, 2009), co-authored with Stephen Collis, is an an extended photo-essay and prose poem about a project the two created about five distinct ecosystems in BC, leaving a single copy of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species to decay for a year in each remote outdoor location. A year later the texts were retrieved, photographed and documented, and worked into Decomp.

Night & Ox (Coach House, 2016) is a long poem that invokes expansive loneliness where the poet's emotional response is to endure.

Scott published his first kidlit book, I Talk Like a River (Penguin, 2020) for children aged 4 - 8, with illustrations by Sydney Smith. It's about a boy who stutters and is helped by a patient and kind father who takes him for a walk by the river to help him find his voice.

Scott lives on Vancouver Island with his wife and two children.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

I Talk Like a River (Penguin, 2020) $24.99 hc 9780823445592. Illustrations by Sydney Smith

Night & Ox (Coach House, 2016) $18.95 9781552453292

Decomp (Coach House, 2009) $24.95 hc 978-1552452820. Co-authored with Stephen Collis

Blert (Coach House Books, 2008)

Silt (New Star, 2004)

[BCBW 2020] "Poetry"