Canadian Poets Series #16 : Darby Minott Bradford

Darby Minott Bradford is a poet, editor, and translator. They hold a BA in Literature from Concordia University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph and edit Poetry Pause, the League of Canadian Poets poem-a-day newsletter. They are the author of Dream of No One but Myself (Brick Books, 2021) [see my review of such here], an interdisciplinary memoir that explores the versioning aspects of Bradford and their family’s histories with abuse and trauma. The collection won the A.M. Klein QWF Prize for Poetry, was a finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize, Governor General Literary Award and Gerard Lampert Memorial Award, and was longlisted for the Grand Prix du livre de Montréal. Their most recent hybrid collection, Bottom Rail on Top (Brick Books, 2023) [see my review of such here], works to complicate prevailing conceptions of Blackness by staging one personal present alongside American histories of antebellum Black life. In a treasure hunt of sorts, the collection employs "a poetics of vestige," as Katherine McKittrick has described it, where "Black worlds are, all at once, refuted and made visible, emptied out and sharply populated." The book was shortlisted for the Raymond Souster Award and the A. M. Klein Prize and was named a 2023 Best Canadian Poetry Book by the CBC. Catch recent work by Bradford at Poetry In Voice and The League of Canadian Poets, as well as interviews posted via The Toronto Arts Report, Open Book, Invisible Publishing and the CBC. The video of a 2023 reading in Victoria, British Columbia at Planet Earth Poetry is posted via YouTube. As a translator of Quebec writing, Bradford’s work is focused on experimental poetic practices on the margins. Their first translation, House Within a House by Nicholas Dawson (Brick Books, 2023), received the Warland Award and John Glassco Translation Prize, and was also shortlisted for the Governor General Literary Awards. Their latest translation, Ring of Dust by Louise Marois, was published by Brick Books in spring 2025. While currently based on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ peoples, Bradford makes their home in Tio'tia:ke (Montreal) on the unceded territory of the Kanienʼkehá:ka nation.