Zachariah Wells
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Zachariah Wells (born 1976) is a Canadian poet, critic, essayist and editor.
Born in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, he grew up in the rural community of Hazel Grove. Wells attended high school in Ottawa, Ontario and university in Halifax, Nova Scotia. As an undergraduate, he spent summers working in Iqaluit, Nunavut as an airline cargo handler. After a brief stint at graduate school in Montreal, Quebec, he returned to Iqaluit in 2001 and later that year transferred to the remote settlement of Resolute, on Cornwallis Island, where he worked until 2003, when he moved to Halifax with his wife, Rachel Lebowitz.
At this point he started contributing book reviews and essays on Canadian poetry to periodicals including Books in Canada, Quill & Quire and Maisonneuve. In the spring of 2004, his first chapbook of poems, Fool's Errand, appeared. In the fall of that year, Toronto's Insomniac Press published his full-length collection of Arctic poems, Unsettled, under Paul Vermeersch's 4 AM Books imprint.
In 2004, Wells started working for Via Rail Canada as a service attendant. Two years later he became the Reviews Editor for Canadian Notes & Queries. He is better-known for his opinionated criticism than for his own poetry. In 2007, after moving with Lebowitz to Vancouver, he published Sealift, a compact disc recording of 24 poems from Unsettled; "Achromatope," a letterpress broadside; and After the Blizzard, a limited edition chapbook. In the spring of 2007, he resumed work with Via Rail.
[edit] Bibliography
- Fool's Errand (chapbook), Charlottetown: Saturday Morning Chapbooks, 2004
- Unsettled (trade paperpack), Toronto: Insomiac Press, 2004
- Ludicrous Parole (chapbook), Montreal: Mercutio Press, 2005
- Huginn & Muninn (lithographed broadside, in collaboration with Margaret Flood), Halifax: privately printed, 2005.
- Sealift (audio CD), Vancouver: Avatar Records, 2007.
- Achromatope (letterpress broadside), Victoria: Frog Hollow Press, 2007.
- After the Blizzard (chapbook), Peterborough: Littlefishcart Press, 2008.
- Jailbreaks: 99 Canadian Sonnets (anthology, as editor) Emeryville: Biblioasis, 2008.
- Anything But Hank! (children's book, co-written with Rachel Lebowitz, illustrated by Eric Orchard) Emeryville: Biblioasis, 2008.
