A. F. Moritz

A. (Albert) F. Moritz is the author of more than 15 books of poetry; he has received the Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the Relit Award (for Night Street Repairs, named the best book of poetry published in Canada in 2005), an Ingram Merrill Fellowship, and a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation. A Canadian citizen, Moritz was born in Ohio and moved to Canada in 1974.

In a review of Night Street Repairs, Lorri Neilsen Glenn observed, “Moritz has a panoptical gaze, intense, compassionate, and scholarly.” He is as likely to examine contemporary situations as classical references; critics have noted his adept handling of the poetic line and the muscularity of his language. In a review of Early Poems (2000), Shane Neilson wrote, “The early oeuvre of A.F. Moritz can be thought of as a word furnace, a combustible mix of dark imagery and deep pessimism.” He continued, “Moritz is somewhat of a paradox, fashioning beautiful lyrics tarred by blood and excrement. His poems are exempted from popular culture and reach back towards classicism, in form as well as subject: old testament prophets are as likely to appear as Greek deities, and the verse structures are hunched-shoulder, square-box lyrics conscious of metre.”

Moritz has translated work from the Spanish, including Body of Insomnia and Other Poems (Cuerpo de insomnia) by Ludwig Zeller (co-translated with his wife, Theresa). He has worked as an editor, publisher, reporter, advertising copywriter, and university professor.