ASHLEY OBSCURA
multi-disciplinary poet • CREATIVE DIRECTOR • LITERARY CURATOR
Ashley OBSCURA’s practice is rooted in a lifelong love of language art, spanning disciplines and mediums to explore poetry's role AND FUNCTION as humanity's most ancient and intuitive technology. Her work explores HUMANITY AND being human in a post-human era. Throughout HER career, SHE HAS integrated multimedia elements into HER poetic practice, viewing poetry as a form of technology that can engage with spirituality, AMBIENT technologies, and natural patterns.
ASHLEY OBSCURA (she/her) is the author of three poetry collections: SEXO POR ÚLTIMA VEZ (Socios Fundadores, 2022), AMBIENT TECHNOLOGY (Metatron, 2018) and the narrator of its audiobook (Metatron, 2024), and I AM HERE (Metatron, 2014). She has been anthologized as one of Canada’s best young poets (30 Under 30, In/Words Press, 2017), one of the most influential female poets in Quebec over the past 20 years (Anthologie de la poésie contemporaine des femmes au Québec, Éditions du remue-ménage, 2021), and named “one of the best poets in Quebec today” (Magazine Spirale, 2019). Translations of her work have appeared in books and anthologies published in Argentina, Peru, Spain, Romania and Germany. She is Mexican-Canadian and based in Montréal, QC.
Obscura is the Founder and Managing Editor of METATRON PRESS (2016), a multi-award-winning literary publisher that publishes experimental and cutting-edge contemporary poetry and fiction in unique pocketbook editions and digital formats. Metatron is a champion of innovative formats for contemporary poetry and its projects include: books, Digital Publications, The Metatron Prize for Rising Authors, the Metacösm podcast, events, and various digital publishing projects, including: GLYPHÖRIA, a new digital literary platform for multidisciplinary poetry, ÖMËGÄ (digital archive), video poems, and micro poems (Instagram).
She is also a Creative Director at APOCABLYSS, where she works as a narrative scenographer, scriptwriter, and co-conceptualizer of experimental video games and digital environments, including work on THE FOOL’S JOURNEY (Apocablyss, 2024), OCEANARIUM (Apocablyss , 2020), SONGS OF THE LOST (Manchester International Festival, 2019), and MUSEUM OF SYMMETRY (National Film Board of Canada, 2018). Museum of Symmetry won multiple awards including the Canadian Screen Award for Best Virtual Reality Game in 2019 for its excellence in digital storytelling.
Recently, Obscura has helped establish INTERTEXT.E, a non-profit organization and center for new trajectories in publication, media, and literary arts in Montreal, QC. She is devoted to building a world where poetry can flourish and thrive.
She was born and raised on Treaty 6 Territory and the homeland of the Métis (Saskatoon, SK), and has lived the past 16 years of her life in Tiohtiá:ke (Montréal, QC) situated on the traditional territory of the Kanien’kehà:ka.