Non-Prophet by Qurat Dar

Raw, reverent, and bursting with searing vulnerability, Non-Prophet canvases the electric tension between devotion and doubt to gods both personal and ubiquitous, and reflects on the natural and built worlds in their claims to the sacred. Winner of the inaugural Claire Harris Poetry Prize, Qurat Dar’s bold debut collection explores what it is to grapple with faith that’s “just another language you’re losing, or one you never learned to speak.”

Weaving through the boundaries of language and form, Non-Prophet meditates on things “just mundane enough to be holy / just holy enough to be mundane” — the death of a bird, the cries of mid-nightmare prayers, the misplaced shame of what it is to bleed. Dar’s poems both rage and reconcile, holding gently the pieces of a fractured identity.

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About the Author

Qurat Dar was Mississauga’s Youth Poet Laureate from 2021 to 2023 and the 2020 Canadian Individual Poetry Slam (CIPS) National Champion. Her poetry has been published by Arc, Room, and Canthius, and shown at the Art Gallery of Mississauga and across the TTC network.