Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Digital Twin” by Qurat Dar, from Non-Prophet (Goose Lane Editions, 2025), shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and longlisted for the Raymond Souster Award.

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Digital Twin

By Qurat Dar

Deepfake Qurat does a cartwheel, grass-stained breathless.

Beams at the camera before braces civilize her mouth.

Deepfake Qurat at the ballet recital, the swim meet,

deepfake parents in the crowd. Cheering.

Deepfake Qurat at a surprise party. Eyes glistening with candles.

Deepfake friends singing happy birthday in reverse.

Deepfake Qurat stays out late. Comes home in shorts.

Unfazed. Never gets moonsick.

Deepfake Qurat autocorrects everyone who has

ever mispronounced her name (compilation).

Deepfake Qurat draws blood for every

stray hand and leer (compilation).

Deepfake Qurat carries herself like an insult. Like cut glass.

Deepfake Qurat is as subtle as a muezzin in his tower.

Deepfake Qurat loves like a call to prayer.

Deepfake Qurat doesn’t write a single poem.

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Copyright © Qurat Dar

From Non-Prophet (Goose Lane Editions 2025), shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and longlisted for the Raymond Souster Award.

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.

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