Todd Swift was born in Montreal on Good Friday, 1966. He is the author or editor of seven books of poetry. During his college years he was a champion debater, and upon graduation wrote many hours of TV. In 1997 he was given the Young Quebecer of the Year Award in the Arts and Education category, for his poetry projects. From 1998-2001 he was Visiting Lecturer at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, specializing in courses on poetry and film. In late 2001 he moved to Paris where he lived and wrote for two years. His work has appeared on stage and radio in many countries. He has been poetry editor of nthposition.com since 2002. In 2003 he was editorial coordinator for Poets Against The War. He has reviewed for Books in Canada, Poetry London, and The Dubliner, among others. He lives in London, England, with his wife.

"Swift's poems move between the familiar and exotic, from the meditative through the speculative. His poetic language too is on the move, from the crisp tentativeness of Elizabeth Bishop to the outer suburbs of Wallace Stevens and even, here and there, Ginsberg. The intimate is always threatened: reality is challenged by its myths. These poems show a young man exploring the world before him with intelligence, grace, even a certain bravado. They make a very auspicious first collection."
— George Szirtes (British poet, author of Selected Poems, Oxford University Press, 1996)
"Swift writes like something still matters, but he doesn't know what. Dark and dangerous, Swift offers us a requiem for the century. Budavox is ... one of the five best and darkest works of 1999."
— Hal Niedzviecki, Geist