Daniel David Moses

Daniel David Moses (February 18, 1952 - July 13, 2020) was a Canadian poet and playwright.[1]

Moses was born in Ohsweken, Ontario, and raised on a farm on the Six Nations of the Grand River near Brantford, Ontario, Canada.[2] In 2003, Moses joined the department of drama at Queen's University as an assistant professor. In 2019, he was appointed Professor Emeritus by Queen's University, Kingston, Canada.

He has worked as an independent artist since 1979 as a poet, playwright, dramaturge, editor, essayist, teacher, and writer-in-residence with institutions as varied as Theatre Passe Muraille, the Banff Centre for the Arts, Theatre Kingston, the University of British Columbia, the University of Western Ontario, the University of Windsor, the University of Toronto, the Sage Hill Writing Experience, McMaster University and Concordia University.[2]

He was openly gay,[3] and also claimed "brothers and sisters among Two-Spirit people." Some of his works, therefore, reflect upon and explore the complexities of Native Two-Spirit or Queer identities.

Personal life

Moses identified as First Nations, but was not enrolled in any Indigenous nation.[4]

Education

Daniel David Moses has an Honours Bachelor of Arts from York University and a Masters in Fine Arts from the University of British Columbia.

Career and accomplishments

In 1974 Moses had his first poem published, and considered himself to be an independent, Toronto-based artist and poet by 1979. However, he soon added the following titles to his repertoire: playwright, dramaturge, editor, essayist, teacher, and artist-, playwright- or writer-in-residence with various institutions (Theatre Passe Muraille, the Banff Centre for the Arts, the University of British Columbia, the University of Western Ontario, the University of Windsor, the University of Toronto (Scarborough), the Sage Hill Writing Experience, McMaster University and Concordia University).

He has also "...served on the boards of the Association for Native Development in the Performing and Visual Arts, Native Earth Performing Arts and the Playwrights Union of Canada (now the Playwrights Guild of Canada) and co-founded (with Lenore Keeshig-Tobias and Tomson Highway) the short-lived but influential Committee to Re-Establish the Trickster. In 2003, he was appointed as a Queen's National Scholar to the Department of Drama at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario where he was an associate professor."

Works
  • Delicate Bodies – 1980
  • The White Line – 1988
  • Coyote City: A Play in Two Acts – 1990 (nominated for a Governor General's Award)
  • The Dreaming Beauty – 1990 – (won 1990 Theatre Canada's National Playwrighting Competition)
  • Almighty Voice and His Wife – 1992
  • The Moon and Dead Indians – 1994 – (won 1994 Du Maurier One Act Playwrighting Competition)
  • The Indian Medicine Shows – 1996 – (won 1996 James Buller Award for Aboriginal Theatre Excellence – Playwright of the Year)
  • Big Buck City - 1998
  • Hotel Centrale, Rotterdam' '-2000
  • Brébeuf's Ghost – 2000
  • Sixteen Jesuses – 2000
  • City of Shadows: Necropolite! – 2000
  • Songs of Love and Medicine – 2005
  • Pursued by a Bear: Talks, Monologues and Tales – 2005
  • Kyotopolis – 2008
  • River Range: Poems – 2009

Moses' poems have been published in international and national literary magazines, such as:

His poetry has also appeared or been featured in the following collections:

  • Native Poetry in Canada, A Contemporary Anthology, edited by Jeanette C. Armstrong and Lally Grauer
  • Native Writers and Canadian Writing, edited by W.H. New
  • The Last Blewointment Anthology, Volume II, edited by Bill Bissett
  • First People, First Voices, edited by Penny Petrone.

Moses was a co-editor of An Anthology of Canadian Native Literature in English with Terry Goldie.[5]

References
  1. "Playwright and poet Daniel David Moses dead at 68". CBC Books, July 16, 2020.
  2. Colin Boyd, "Daniel David Moses". The Canadian Encyclopedia, February 7, 2008.
  3. Moses, Daniel David (2007), Pursued by a Bear: Talks, Monologues and Tales, Exile Editions, Ltd., p. 112, ISBN 978-1-55096-646-6
  4. Glancy, Diane; Rodriguez, Lina (2023). Unpapered: Writers Consider Native American Identity and Cultural Belonging. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press. p. 212. ISBN 1496235002.
  5. Campbell, Wanda (1994). "The rumour of humanity: an interview with Daniel David Moses". Windsor Review. 27.2 (Fall 1994): 55–63 – via ProQuest.
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