Jan Zwicky

Jan Zwicky studied at University of Toronto and University of Calgary. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is Canadian literature in English, philosophy and music. Residence is recorded at Quadra Island. Employment is recorded with University of Western Ontario, European Graduate School and University of Waterloo.

• Name — Jan Zwicky • Born — 10 May 1955 • Birthplace — Calgary, Alberta, Canada • Occupation — * Poet • philosopher • musician • Spouse — Robert Bringhurst

Zwicky received her BA from the University of Calgary and earned her PhD at the University of Toronto in 1981 where her studies focussed on the philosophy of logic and science. She subsequently taught philosophy at Princeton University; philosophy and interdisciplinary humanities at the University of Waterloo; philosophy at the University of Western Ontario; philosophy, English, and creative writing at the University of New Brunswick; and philosophy at the University of Alberta. Zwicky is Professor Emerita in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Victoria, where she taught both philosophy and interdisciplinary humanities courses from 1996 until 2009. She has served as a faculty member at the Banff Centre Writing Studio, has conducted numerous writing workshops, and served as an editor for Brick Books from 1985 to 2018. From 2017 through 2019, she was the series editor of Oskana Poetry and Poetics, an imprint of the University of Regina Press.

Zwicky's poetry is influenced by music in the classical European, blues, and jazz traditions. It also deals with the natural world, and has often been cited for its intense lyricism. Thirty-seven Small Songs and Thirteen Silences has appeared in Swedish (translated by Roy Isaakson; Palaver Press). Numerous individual poems have been translated into Czech, French, German, Serbian, Spanish and Italian. Among her many accolades, both Zwicky's Songs for Relinquishing the Earth and Robinson's Crossing were shortlisted for Governor General's Awards for Poetry. Songs for Relinquishing the Earth won the award in 1999. Robinson's Crossing won the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize in 2004. Her 2011 book, Forge, was shortlisted for the 2012 Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize.

• "Wittgenstein and the Logic of Inference", Dialogue, Vol. XXI, No. 4, December 1982 • "Bringhurst's Presocratics: Lyric and Ecology" in Poetry and Knowing: Speculative Essays and Interviews (edited by Tim Lilburn) – 1995 • "Plato's Phaedrus: Philosophy as Dialogue With the Dead", Apeiron, Vol. 30, No. 1, March 1997 • "Being, Polyphony, Lyric: An Open Letter to Robert Bringhurst", Canadian Literature, No. 156, Spring 1998 • "The Geology of Norway", Harvard Review of Philosophy, Vol. 7, Spring 1999 • "Dream Logic and the Politics of Interpretation" & "Once Upon a Time in the West: Heidegger and the Poets" in Thinking and Singing: Poetry & The Practice of Philosophy (edited by Tim Lilburn) – 2002 • "Wilderness and Agriculture" in The Eye in the Thicket: Essays at a Natural History (edited by Sean Virgo) – 2002 • "Integrity and Ornament" in Crime and Ornament, edited by Bernie Miller and Melony Ward 2002 • "Oracularity", Metaphilosophy, Vol. 34, No. 4, July 2003 • "The Ethics of the Negative Review", Malahat Review, No. 144, Fall 2003 • Introduction to Hard Choices: Climate Change in Canada, edited by Harold Coward and A.J. Weaver 2004 • "Mathematical Analogy and Metaphorical Insight", The Mathematical Intelligencer, Vol. 28, No. 2, 2006 • '"Lyric, Narrative, Memory" in A Ragged Pen: Essays on Poetry & Memory – 2006 • "Lyric Realism: Nature Poetry, Silence and Ontology", Malahat Review, No. 165, Winter 2008 • "What Is Ineffable?", International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 26, No. 2, June 2012, pp 197–217 • "Alcibiades' Love" in Philosophy as a Way of Life: Ancients and Moderns (edited by Michael Chase, Stephen R. L. Clark, and Michael McGhee) – 2013 • "A Note on Jane Jacobs's Systems of Survival, or Why We Will Not Be Able to Prevent Global Ecological Collapse" in Brick: A Literary Journal, Vol. 105, Summer 2020, pp 48–53 • "Frost and Snow", Eidos: A Journal for Philosophy of Culture, Vol. 5, 2021, pp 146–154 and Brick: A Literary Journal, Vol. 107, Summer 2021, pp 45–53

• "There is No Place That Does Not See You" – 2002 Interviewed by Anne Simpson in Where the Words Come From: Canadian Poets in Conversation (edited by Tim Bowling) • "The Details: An Interview with Jan Zwicky" – 2008 Interviewed by Jay Ruzesky in the Malahat Review, No. 165, Winter 2008 • "Perfect Fluency" – 2011 Interviewed by Scott Pinkmountain in the Owen Wister Review • "The Griffin Poetry Prize Questionnaire: Jan Zwicky" – 4 June 2012, The National Post, Mark Medley

• "Contemplation and Resistance: A conversation [with Tim Lilburn]" excerpt reprinted in Lyric Ecology (edited by Mark Dickinson and Clare Goulet, 2010) • "Embodiment and Voice: A Conversation", with Darren Bifford and Warren Heiti, Brick 94 (Winter 2015), 15–23.

• Lyric Ecology: An Appreciation of the Work of Jan Zwicky, ed. Mark Dickinson and Clare Goulet – 2010