Rachel Zolf’s poetic practice explores interrelated materialist questions concerning memory, history, knowledge, subjectivity and the conceptual limits of language and meaning. She is particularly interested in how ethics founders on the shoals of the political. Her fourth full-length book, Neighbour Procedure, was released by Coach House Books in 2010. Previous collections include Human Resources (Coach House, 2007), which won the 2008 Trillium Book Award for Poetry and was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award, Shoot & Weep (Nomados, 2008), from Human Resources (Belladonna books, 2005), Masque (The Mercury Press, 2004), finalist for the 2005 Trillium Book Award for Poetry, and Her absence, this wanderer (BuschekBooks, 1999), finalist in the CBC Literary Competition.
Zolf has given readings, talks and seminars across North America, and her poetry and essays have been widely published. Her work appears in several anthologies,including Prismatic Publics: Innovative Canadian Women’s Poetry and Poetics (Coach House, 2009) and I’ll Drown My Book: Conceptual Writing by Women (Les Figues, 2011). She was the founding poetry editor of Canada’s The Walrus magazine, has edited several books of poetry and sat on a number of grant and contest juries. She has been awarded a Chalmers Arts Fellowship as well as multiple poetry, non-fiction, and video grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council and the Bravo arts network. Her work has been translated into French, Portuguese and Spanish and into video art form.
Zolf spent many years working in documentary film and television as a researcher and writer-producer and has an ongoing practice as a communications consultant. She has also collaborated with other artists on various initiatives, including experimental poetry video, polyvocal performance and what could be the first collaborative MFA in Creative Writing ever, The Tolerance Project. Her literary papers are housed at York University archives, and she is a member of the League of Canadian Poets and the Writers Union of Canada. Born in Toronto, Zolf is presently living in New York City.
