Giovanna Riccio is a University of Toronto graduate with a major in philosophy. She is the author of one chapbook and two poetry collections. Her poems, essays and book reviews have appeared in national and international anthologies and journals including Exile Quarterly, CV2, Vallum, Literary Quarterly, Freefall, Ocean State Review (US) and Soglie, (Italy). Giovanna is a retired teacher who created a successful writing programme for young people at the Royal Ontario Museum and and who gives poetry writing workshops and readings to both elementary and high school students. She has received praise form teachers for her work with younger students in grades two and three. Her poems have been translated into five languages and she has collaborated on published translations from Slovenian. Plastic's Republic was a finalist for the 2022 Bressani Poetry Prize and her poem, "The Archivist," won the 2021 Venera Fazio Poetry Prize.
Poetry Reading from books and new poems.
Q and A
Workshops can be a single presentation or through the Poets in the Schools programme, spread over a number of days. Groups will write a group poem using a few basic poetry techniques, then an individual poem based on the experience. Workshops can cover how to generate language, the writing of simile and metaphor and the use of sound techniques and rhythm in writing effective poems. Easier forms such as catalogue poems, couplets and quatrains (rhymed and unrhymed) appeal to all students and exercises such as Freefall appeal to older students.
Available for Poetry Readings and workshops as described above.
