Author Description

Todd Swift is one of the most exciting and eclectic young writers to emerge in Canada. Over the last years he has continuously explored new genres and themes, writing in a variety of styles, including work for television, film, radio, theatre, CD, spoken word and the printed page. He has also become recognized as one of North Americaís leading poetry activists and is involved internationally in the promotion of performance poets, through his various cabaret events and other related projects. As performer, writer, impresario and editor, (of the significant anthologies Map-Makersí Colours: New Poets of Northern Ireland and Poetry Nation: The North American Anthology of Fusion Poets), he has defined a new kind of cosmopolitan panache for the idea of the poet as key figure at the start of the new millennium. Critical Comment ìSwiftís poems move between the familiar and exotic, from the meditative through the speculative. His poetic language too is on the move, from the crisp tentativeness of Elizabeth Bishop to the outer suburbs of Wallace Stevens and even, here and there, Ginsberg. The intimate is always threatened: reality is challenged by its myths. These poems show a young man exploring the world before him with intelligence, grace, even a certain bravado. They make a very auspicious first collection.î ó George Szirtes (British poet, author of Selected Poems, Oxford University Press, 1996) ìSwift writes like something still matters, but he doesnít know what. Dark and dangerous, Swift offers us a requiem for the century. Budavox is... one of the five best and darkest works of 1999.î ó Hal Niedzviecki, Geist ìThereís as much energy in Budavox: Poems (1990-1999).... Swift...writes with assurance, verve and distinctiveness that many older poets would envy.... His examinations of violence are particularly compelling.î ó Diana Fitzgerald Bryden, National Post ìSwift is a voice for our time.î óDerek Mahon