A word with Qurat Dar, fresh from their reading for the New Cartography Poetry showcase at Toronto Metropolitan University in March 2026.
When does writing feel easiest to you?
It’s pretty rare that writing feels easy to me, unfortunately. I find when I have structure and accountability for my writing and have a creative community, that’s when it’s most likely to happen.
Who do you share your early drafts with?
I tend to avoid sharing early drafts, it’s the most fragile part of the process for me so I feel like I have to protect them for a bit while they learn to walk. The one exception is if I’m writing with a group of friends and we’re all feeling jazzed to share what we came up with.
Have you had a teacher that stood out or that you still think about to this day? How does their influence continue to surface in your current practice?
My grade seven teacher, who was adamant about the importance of reading (maybe to an extreme – he had us reading while we waited in line for class!). I was a bookworm, and it felt like the first time someone saw the value in that. I feel like my early reading habits are the reason I write now.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
Being a writer always felt aspirational, and a bit impossible. It’s only now, with a book out, having spent many years writing, that I’ve started considering myself a writer “for real.” Kind of.
How has writing enabled you to rewrite yourself?
Writing, and writing poetry specifically, has given me permission to turn towards where it might be my first instinct to turn away.
What is magical to you? What is the last thing you were enchanted by?
Nature in its vastness. The mists draping the side of a mountain.
What is something new that you’ve learned recently, whether mundane or existential?
Samsung doesn’t make USB-A charger adapters anymore (boo).
What was the last risk you took? OR What’s the last mistake you made?
The last risk I took was getting bangs after a lifetime of no bangs.
What is a word you love but don’t get to use enough?
“Mudlarking.” I never get to use the word but would love to work it into a poem somehow.
Qurat Dar is the author of Non-Prophet (Goose Lane Editions 2025), winner of the inaugural Claire Harris Poetry Prize and a Lambda Literary Award finalist. She was the City of Mississauga’s Youth Poet Laureate from 2021-2023 and the 2020 Canadian Individual Poetry Slam National Champion. Qurat’s poems have appeared in Augur, EVENT, Arc Poetry Magazine, and across the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) network.
She’s currently trying to learn medium format film photography and ruining several rolls of film in the process.