Rachel Zucker


Rachel Zucker is an American poet born in New York City in 1971. She is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently, The Pedestrians. She also co-edited the book Women Poets on Mentorship: Efforts and Affections with fellow poet, Arielle Greenberg.

Early life

Rachel Zucker was born in New York City in 1971. The daughter of storyteller Diane Wolkstein and novelist Benjamin Zucker, she was raised in Greenwich Village and traveled around the world with her parents on Wolkstein's folktale-collecting trips. After high school, Zucker attended Yale University where she majored in Psychology, focusing on Child Development, though she took as many literature, writing and photography classes as she was allowed. Zucker later went on to the Iowa Writers' Workshop where she received her M.F.A. in poetry.

Career

She teaches graduate and undergraduate poetry classes at New York University’s Creative Writing Program and has taught at Yale and served as poet in residence at Fordham University.
Zucker is creator and host of the podcast Commonplace: Conversations with Poets. Her poem, "In Your Version of Heaven I Am Younger" was featured in the anthology, The Best American Poetry.

Personal life

Zucker lives in New York City with her husband and three sons and teaches at New York University. She holds certifications as a labor doula from the Doulas of North America and as a collaborative childbirth educator from the Childbirth Education Association of Metropolitan New York. Since that time she has aided many women during labor, birth and postpartum and through her doula work and her writing, advocates for universal access to maternity care.

Awards and accolades