2026 - Nyla Matuk
Nyla Matuk (b. Winnipeg, 1967) is a Canadian poet and prose writer.
She is the author of two books of poetry: Sumptuary Laws (2012), nominated for the Gerald Lampert Award, and Stranger (2016). She is also the editor of an anthology of poetry, Resisting Canada. She has received support from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Ontario Arts Council, and others, and has undertaken residencies at Yaddo (U.S.A.) and Mandelieu-la-Napoule (France). In 2018, she was appointed the writer in residence at McGill University. She has recently finished the manuscript for her début novel, Leila and Khaled (Anansi, 2026) set in occupied Palestine, and is working toward the end of a third poetry manuscript, Fata Morgana.
At Passa Porta Nyla will be working on an artist’s book project drawing on her own poems, one of which is inspired by the leporello produced in 1931 by Sonia Delaunay and Blaise Cendrars at the start of the colour simultaneity period of the former’s practice. Using watercolour, ink, and the inspiration of the train journey motif, Nyla will explore colour theory, simultaneity, and the trajectory of “a river of words” prose poem using word and colour juxtaposition and abstraction.
This residency is made possible with the support of the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles and the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec (CALQ).