Shannon Scoates: When Instinct Remembers Who We Are

Shannon Scoates: When Instinct Remembers Who We Are

By Vo Thi Nhu Mai (co-editor)

Krafty Page ChronicleS continues to grow through collaboration, cultural exchange, and the belief that writing can bring different lives into the same conversation. The July 2026 Global Issue, Metamorphoses: Lives in Translation, reflects that vision through the collaboration between Krafty Page ChronicleS and The Rhythm of Vietnam.

At the heart of this collaboration are two distinct literary voices: Nelly Vee, a Caribbean poet, writer, and songwriter, and myself, Vo Thi Nhu Mai, a Vietnamese-Australian poet and writer. Our backgrounds are different, our cultural experiences are different, and our creative expressions are our own. Yet this collaboration reminds us that difference does not prevent connection. It gives us another language through which to understand one another.

It is within that spirit of cultural and literary exchange that I introduce Shannon Scoates.

When I first entered the world of Lynx Keep of Secrets, I did not feel that I was simply reading a poem about an animal. I felt that I was being invited into a quieter conversation about instinct, identity, memory, and the parts of ourselves that remain present even when the world attempts to define us differently.

Shannon Scoates — Featured in Krafty Page ChronicleS

From the pages of the July 2026 Global Issue, Metamorphoses: Lives in Translation, presented through the collaboration between Krafty Page ChronicleS and The Rhythm of Vietnam.

Krafty Page ChronicleS
July 2026 Global Issue
Metamorphoses: Lives in Translation

Shannon Scoates — Lynx Keep of Secrets

Shannon Scoates
Poet based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

The Lynx Sees What We Hide

Scoates begins with the act of seeing.

“As I embody the lynx,” she writes, her eyes sharpen toward what others try to hide. Yet the secrets she discovers are not treated as burdens. They become treasures, something valuable enough to protect (Scoates, 2026).

That distinction stayed with me.

We often associate secrets with something negative, something that should be uncovered or exposed. Scoates gives secrecy another dimension. Some truths are deeply personal. Some things are not meant for public examination. Sometimes understanding another person means recognizing the value of allowing them to keep what belongs to them.

The lynx becomes the observer.

Quiet. Alert. Present.

It does not need to announce what it knows.

There Is Power in Watching

The speaker moves away from the noise of the world and into places where she can watch without being seen. From that position, she observes the truths, fractures, and unspoken ache of the world around her (Scoates, 2026).

I find strength in that image.

There are times when stepping away from the noise allows us to hear what constant activity keeps hidden. Silence can give us another kind of vision.

Scoates's lynx does not chase the world for answers. It observes. It listens. It senses.

There is wisdom in that.

Instinct Before Explanation

What I find particularly compelling is the way Scoates allows instinct to become its own language.

The earth communicates through pulse and tremor. The speaker answers through breath and presence. Her whiskers read the air the way another person might read a book. She senses what is approaching before it arrives and trusts an internal knowing that does not require conventional explanation (Scoates, 2026).

Perhaps many of us understand that feeling.

There are moments when we know something before we can explain how we know it. A change in someone's voice. A shift in a room. A feeling that something has changed even though nothing has been said.

Scoates gives that experience form through the lynx.

Instinct becomes language.

Remembering Before the World Defined Us

The emotional center of the poem arrives beneath the moon.

The speaker remembers who she was before the world told her who to be (Scoates, 2026).

For me, that is where the poem moves beyond nature and becomes deeply personal.

We are all shaped by the worlds around us. Culture shapes us. Family shapes us. Relationships shape us. Experience shapes us. Sometimes those influences help us grow. Sometimes they cause us to silence parts of ourselves simply because those parts do not fit what others expect.

Scoates does not present transformation as becoming somebody else.

She presents it as remembering.

Remembering the self that existed before the expectations.

Before the labels.

Before the outside world decided who we were supposed to become.

Instinct Is Not a Reaction

Another passage stayed with me because Scoates describes the ancestors of her wildness moving through her. Their paws. Their breath. Their ancient vigilance.

Then comes an important realization: instinct is not merely a reaction. It is lineage.

That idea resonates with the larger purpose behind our collaboration between Krafty Page ChronicleS and The Rhythm of Vietnam.

Our cultures may speak through different histories, images, traditions, and experiences, but each carries memory. Each carries inherited knowledge. Each carries stories that existed before us and continue through us.

Perhaps transformation is not always about leaving those things behind.

Perhaps sometimes transformation means understanding what we inherited and deciding what we will carry forward.

Silent. Sovereign. Alive.

By the conclusion of Lynx Keep of Secrets, the speaker no longer needs to pretend she is becoming the lynx.

She realizes that the qualities represented by the animal were already within her.

The poem closes with three simple declarations:

“Silent.
Sovereign.
Unmistakably alive.” (Scoates, 2026)

There is no need for further explanation.

After all the observation, solitude, instinct, memory, and self-discovery, the speaker simply stands in the truth of who she is.

Lives in Translation

This is why Shannon Scoates's work belongs within Metamorphoses: Lives in Translation.

Her poem translates instinct into language. It translates nature into metaphor. It translates solitude into strength and transformation into remembrance.

And perhaps that is what this collaboration between Krafty Page ChronicleS and The Rhythm of Vietnam is ultimately about.

Not making our voices the same.

Not erasing the differences between cultures.

But creating a space where different voices can stand beside one another without losing their individual identities.

Nelly Vee brings his Caribbean perspective as a poet, writer, and songwriter. I bring my perspective as a Vietnamese-Australian poet and writer. Shannon Scoates brings her own Canadian voice and her relationship with instinct, nature, and emotional truth.

Different backgrounds.

Different experiences.

Different voices.

One shared page.

And perhaps that is the beauty of literary collaboration.

We do not have to become one another to understand one another.

Sometimes we simply need to listen.

About Shannon Scoates

Shannon Scoates is a poet based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Her submitted work explores instinct, emotional truth, and the quiet power of the natural world. She describes her writing as blending mythic imagery with lived experience and inviting readers into the hidden spaces where transformation begins (Scoates, 2026).

Reference

Scoates, S. (2026, April 25). Lynx Keep of Secrets [Poem].

Published in: Krafty Page ChronicleS, July 2026 Global Issue, Metamorphoses: Lives in Translation.

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