George J. Dance

George James Dance is a Canadian poet, writer, and blogger on poetry and politics.

Youth
Dance was born in Kingston, Ontario, the son of Hilda (Leith) and George Nelson Dance, a sergeant-major in the Army. His mother died when he was too young to remember her.

Dance and his family lived in Quebec, Manitoba, and Ontario again in his childhood. He began writing in public school, and became interested in poetry in his first year of high school, 1967, when he was introduced to the works of that year's winner of the Governor General's Award for English language poetry or drama, Leonard Cohen.

Dance's family moved to Newcastle (now Miramichi), New Brunswick, when he was 16, and he took is last year of high school at that town's Harkins Academy, where he studied poetry under Doug Underhill.

After graduating from Harkins with honors, Dance attended Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick. In his second year he studied modern poetry (a third-year course) under John Thompson. He also began writing poetry, none of which the student newspaper, the Argosy, would print. (The Argosy did, however, publish a short story of his, "The Little Gentleman").

Dance dropped out of university after his second year due to financial difficulties and, unable to find a job, moved in 1973 to Toronto, where he worked at a variety of menial jobs. The following summer he read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, which caused him to take what he calls "a 30-year career detour into politics.: