Tanya Davis Moves To Halifax And Keeps On Writing

Spoken word poet/performer Tanya Davis masterly cajoles language into brief, simple songs embodying universal themes such as love, loneliness, loss, infatuation and art. She's catalogued her deep pockets of syllables, synonyms, verbs, adjectives and nouns into a debut disc dubbed Make A List.

"I've been writing since I was very little, it was the first thing I ever wanted to do when I grew up," says Davis, over morning coffee in Halifax. "Growing up on P.E.I., there wasn't a hell of a lot to do, as I'm sure like it is growing up in many small towns.

"I think it influenced me to write a lot. There wasn't really another option."

Nova Scotia recently adopted the burgeoning wordsmith, as the local weekly The Coast pegged her as "one of Halifax's most mesmerizing performers." In her late twenties, Davis seems to be spilling the ink from her pen anywhere and everywhere. Since her humble beginnings softly sputtering words from scraps of loose leaf at quiet cafes in Vancouver and Charlottetown, she decided to hang her literary hat in Halifax.

"I try and write every day," says Davis. "I just moved into a new house and I can feel I'm not writing as much.

"I didn't know anybody at first, so I just wrote. I moved here because I wanted to make music. I wrote every day. That was my work."

Davis draws inspiration from personal experience and the surrounding world. The well-read word hound considers Anne-Marie MacDonald, Michelle Tea and Alice Walker as lettered comrades. Her musical abilities were recently recognized in Liverpool during Nova Scotia Music Week, as she was nominated for four Nova Scotia Music Awards: new artist/group, female recording, alternative recording and album of the year.

"I'm completely honoured," says Davis. "I don't feel like I left high school deciding to be a rock star.

"It took some time to get here. Now that I am here, it's all that I want to do. It's all that I think I'm designed for. It's my passion. I have nothing to fall back on. This is it right now. This is going to be it."

Davis trumpets truth, as she consciously lives a cathartic, honest and genuine existence, both inside and outside of her music. She's comfortable being a visibly queer poet, person and public entity.

"It's most important for me to be genuine about who I am, so I feel like I'd rather neither flaunt or hide," Davis explains."It's a non-issue for me in my life. I feel like I did the young-twenty, coming out, angry feminist. I feel like a lot of women go through it, the empowering stage. I still think about gender and sexuality issues. I don't write about it as overtly anymore."

Davis is an emotional polymath, as she combines the artful aesthetic of Ani DiFranco with the rhythmic schemes of Kinnie Starr. In the near future she hopes to record a full-length album, figure out what she should name her band and then tour. She currently plays with Don Brownrigg on keyboards, and Down With The Butterfly's Kris Pope on electric guitar and Jason Burns on drums.

Check out Davis and her untitled band at Halifax's One World Cafe with Catherine MacLellan on Dec. 1 and at Babba's in Charlottetown with Jenn Grant on Dec. 27.