Home
Yet another published graduate of SFU Writer's Studio as well as the Humber College School for Writers, Jennifer Zilm was born in Terrace, grew up in Surrey and--after sojourns in Toronto, Hamilton, Jerusalem and Tang Shan, China--moved to East Vancouver with an M.A. in Religious Studies from UBC. Zilm was a doctoral candidate in Early Judaism and Christianity at McMaster University, studying the Dead Sea Scrolls. Her poems have appeared in various journals such as Arc Canadian Poetry Magazine, Prism International, The Antigonish Review, Vallum and Contemporary Verse 2. She works in libraries and social housing. Her first major collection, Waiting Room is a potpourri of styles and content, mixing her perspectives as an academic and a self-described frontline worker on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. SFU's Wayde Compton has supplied one of the year's most original blurbs: "Jennifer Zilm's Waiting Room is incantatory and incandescent. Like Brian Wilson's assertion of the song as a pocket symphony, Zilm's poetic lyrics are pocket epics."
In seeking to answer Pontius Pilate’s trolling question, “What is truth?” Jennifer Zilm turns to a variety of sources and discourses in her upcoming poetry collection First-Time Listener (Guernica Editions $20) due out in October. Her replies are inspired by (but never limited to) God, Gilgamesh, CNN, the Cloud, the Bible, hypochondriac hay fever sufferers, Bob Dylan, YouTube conspiracy tutorials, Proust, marginally-housed meth heads, Benjamin Moore paint swatches, Tarot cards, ancestry.com as well as her own memories and senses.
Waiting Room was shortlisted for a Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry and her second major collection, The Missing Field (Guernica Editions, 2018) was shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award.
BOOKS:
The Whole and Broken Yellows: Van Gogh Poems and Others (Frog Hollow Press, 2013) $20.00 9781926948140
October Notebook (dancing girl press, 2015)
Devouring the Green: Fear of a Human Planet (Seattle: Jaded Ibis Press, 2014). Contributor and co-editor with Sim Watt
Waiting Room (Book Thug, 2016) $18 9781771662147
The Missing Field (Guernica Editions, 2018) $20 9781771832779
First-Time Listener (Guernica Editions, 2022) $20 9781771837460
[BCBW 2022]
In seeking to answer Pontius Pilate’s trolling question, “What is truth?” Jennifer Zilm turns to a variety of sources and discourses in her upcoming poetry collection First-Time Listener (Guernica Editions $20) due out in October. Her replies are inspired by (but never limited to) God, Gilgamesh, CNN, the Cloud, the Bible, hypochondriac hay fever sufferers, Bob Dylan, YouTube conspiracy tutorials, Proust, marginally-housed meth heads, Benjamin Moore paint swatches, Tarot cards, ancestry.com as well as her own memories and senses.
Waiting Room was shortlisted for a Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry and her second major collection, The Missing Field (Guernica Editions, 2018) was shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award.
BOOKS:
The Whole and Broken Yellows: Van Gogh Poems and Others (Frog Hollow Press, 2013) $20.00 9781926948140
October Notebook (dancing girl press, 2015)
Devouring the Green: Fear of a Human Planet (Seattle: Jaded Ibis Press, 2014). Contributor and co-editor with Sim Watt
Waiting Room (Book Thug, 2016) $18 9781771662147
The Missing Field (Guernica Editions, 2018) $20 9781771832779
First-Time Listener (Guernica Editions, 2022) $20 9781771837460
[BCBW 2022]
