About Zoë Ryder White
Zoë Ryder White’s poems have appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, Iterant, Plume, and Threepenny Review, among others. Her first full-length collection, The Visible Field, is forthcoming from River River Books in early 2026. A chapbook, Via Post, was a finalist for Tupelo Press’ Snowbound Chapbook award and won the Sixth Finch chapbook contest in 2022. HYPERSPACE was the editors’ choice pick for the Verse Tomaž Šalamun Prize in 2020 and is available from Factory Hollow Press. She co-authored A Study in Spring (Rabbit Catastrophe Press, 2015) and Elsewhere (Sixth Finch Press, 2020)) with Nicole Callihan. A former elementary school teacher, she edits books for educators about the craft of teaching.
Social Media:
BlueSky: @zoeryderwhite.bsky.social
Instagram: @zoeryderwhite
Facebook: Zoe Ryder White
https://linktr.ee/zoeryderwhite
Chapbooks:
Elsewhere (with Nicole Callihan)
and Via Post
https://sixthfinch.com/store.html
HYPERSPACE
https://www.factoryhollowpress.com/books/hyperspace
A Study in Spring (with Nicole Callihan)
http://rabbitcatastrophepress.com/a-study-in-spring
A Profile of the Author
Notes on Published Work
All three of the poems in this issue will appear in my first full length poetry collection, The Visible Field, due out from River River Books in early 2026. Each arose from different seasons/sets of circumstance a few years ago – though we were well into the pandemic when they were written – and while I can’t remember the exact conditions that prompted each, reading them now, I can feel the weight of the deep loneliness/sense of separation of those days. They all have that flavor, I think, whether I want them to or not. “Interview” is a response to Bhanu Kapil’s “Twelve Questions,” which a fellow poet brought to a wonderful zoom writing group I was a part of during that time. “Lunar Retreat” and “Some Sentences, Some Clauses, a Word,” were written during a month of collective poem-a-day posting, as well. It’s interesting to read them with some distance, as a little collection. They all seem to be trying to figure out embodiment/disembodiment. Distance/togetherness. The murky edges of things – places, ideas – continue to draw my attention. Sometimes I think my poems are asking the same questions over and over again – or maybe it’s all one poem, in many parts!
Music, Food, Booze, Tattoos, Kittens, etc.
I ran (and walked!) the Twin Cities marathon last year with my childhood best friend – we chatted and laughed our way from Minneapolis to St Paul – had so much fun I signed up to do it again this year. I find myself seasonally obsessed with certain things (same t- shirt and jeans in heavy rotation for weeks at a time, same sandwich, same songs). Now it’s a pair of thrift store jeans and yellow socks, the incomparable deliciousness of cilantro, and Gillian Welch. I’m an editor in my day job, and because much of my creative work is also with words, sometimes I get tired of them, so I’ve been learning how to throw pots. I’m taking a handbuilding class now which is such a joy. I have an idea to make a bunch of wonky little mugs with monsters on them. Spiders. Leaves. Etc. Work plus 3 kids means not a ton of extra time, which means I’ve had to get efficient in some ways, and comfortable with things taking time in others –having my first full length contracted at age 50 seems somehow just right. Oh – tattoos! None. When I was writing my chapbook HYPERSPACE I was obsessed with filling my forearms with the going-into-hyperspace lines (think Star Wars). That obsession faded – I think I change my mind too much for actual tattoos.
