IDSWS 2025 will offer three writing workshops, led by George Elliott Clarke, Stephen J. Cribari, and Giovanna Riccio, and one workshop on Italian diaspora history and literature, led by Margherita Ganeri.
George Elliott Clarke
The 4th Poet Laureate of Toronto (2012-15) and the 7th Parliamentary/Canadian Poet Laureate (2016-17), George Elliott Clarke was born in Windsor, Nova Scotia, in 1960. An English Professor at the University of Toronto, Clarke has taught at Duke, McGill, UBC, and Harvard. Laurels: Pierre Elliott Trudeau Fellows Prize, Governor-General’s Award for Poetry, National Magazine Gold Award for Poetry, Premiul Poesis (Romania), Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction, Eric Hoffer Book Award for Poetry (US).
Writing Poetry That Sings! (five sessions)
Ezra Pound advises that the further poetry moves away from music, the closer--worrisomely--it edges toward dull, flat prose. Indeed, as human beings formed cultures and civilizations, poetry began as song, chant, prayer, and prophecy, i.e., as a verbal means to move the heart and stimulate imagination, partly by inculcating attention to rhythm, rhyme, and other sound effects. Poetry is Voice, even if many of us encounter it, in classrooms, in books, or on screens, as a mute order of words to be scanned or read silently, our eyes moving, but not our lips. Yet, Poetry is the unstinting tongue--intersecting with pulse, heartbeat, breath--dancing over all difficulty in expression and obstacles to meaning. In this course, we will (re-)learn the truth that Poetry is the Truth of the heart (and brain), given visceral force by emotive vocalization. We will (re-)discover the connectedness of soul, psyche, and song; i.e., we will realize that, whatever the subject, the Poem is always a Whitmanic "Song of Myself." The Workshop will offer participants a choice of exercises to pursue that will have the effect of allowing each poet to realize the power of their/her/his own voice.
Stephen J. Cribari
Stephen J. Cribari’s poetry and plays have found their way into print and onto the theatrical and operatic stage in the United States and abroad. In a parallel life he was a criminal defense attorney and law professor teaching evidence, criminal law and procedure, and cultural property. His poetry recently appeared in the Paterson Literary Review and Bluebird Word. Still Life (a verse-novella; 2020) and Delayed en Route (2022) are published by Lothrop Street Press.
Workshop on The Art of Poetry (two sessions)
If you were handed the score for a Verdi aria and could read the words but not the musical notation, how much would you miss? If you wrote a poem without sensitivity to its musical structures, how much would your reader miss? Punctuation, meter, rhyme, even the words themselves: these provide the musical notation of how a poem should sound. In this workshop, we will focus on developing our awareness of the musical form of a poem, so as to enhance the creative skills available to us as poets.
Giovanna Riccio
A prize-winning poet, teacher and independent scholar, Giovanna Riccio was born in Calabria, Italy and immigrated to Canada as a child. She is a graduate of the University of Toronto with a major in philosophy. Giovanna is the author of the acclaimed dramatic monologue, Vittorio (Lyricalmyrical Press, 2010) and two poetry collections: Strong Bread (Quattro Books, 2011), and Plastic’s Republic (Guernica Editions, 2019), which was a finalist for the 2022 Bressani Prize. Her new manuscript is titled Elegies and Endings. Giovanna’s poems have appeared in national and international publications, numerous anthologies, and have been translated into six languages and composed into songs.
Voicing Your Truth Fearlessly (two sessions)
Poetry’s great power convinces the vulnerable, hesitant side of our psyche of its right to be heard despite all the damning forces touting the wisdom of silence. Indeed, in cobwebbed shadows dwells the outlawed, outcast self. But poets — hunters tracking the human heart and mind — seek an elemental, existential truth. Poetry confirms that our defeats, wounds, dreams, and ecstasies illuminate the thorny beauty of a grief-troubled world. Says Nobel Laureate, Seamus Heaney: poetic form allows us access to our strongest weaknesses. So, our sessions will try out the dramatic monologue, the epistolary poem (poems written as letters) and the catalogue poem. Such forms ease our way into what American poet, Joy Harjo, calls “the timeless room of lost poetry,” a site haunted by fragile lovers, rogue relations, conflicted heroes, and poignant victims. Our exercises will welcome memory, revery and revelation. Like psychologists, we will freely associate; like archeologists, we will shovel dirt; like wizards we will hold language spellbound, thereby conjuring fresh images and conspiring with sound and rhythm to highlight meaning and intensify mood. Thus, you will pen your truth and guide, to outspoken power.
Margherita Ganeri
A full Professor of Contemporary Italian Literature at the University of Calabria, she is the founding director of the Seminar Italian Diaspora Studies. She is on the board of directors of the journal «Moderna», and directs the book series Italian Diaspora Studies for the publisher Rubbettino.
Receiver of two Fulbright fellowships, she was appointed visiting professor at numerous universities in Australia, Canada, Europe and USA. Her most recent invitation was in spring 2024 to The University of Toronto (ON, CA).
Diasporic Calabria: Writing the Search for Roots (four sessions)
This workshop will provide an overview of Calabria’s history, a history which includes successive waves of emigration. We will address such crucial questions, as the definition of diasporic identity in relation to displacement, the so-called Southern Question, the internalized colonial orientalism, the transnationality of contemporary Calabria, the importance of positionalities and the benefits of changing them. We will reflect on why we are participating in this seminar and on the relationships between writing and the search for roots in order to liberate our creative energy. There will be a session on Helen Barolini's well known novel Umbertina, and a glimpse into the ethnic minorities of Calabria, in particular the Albanians. We will read from the Italian-Albanian memoir by Rose Musacchio's Hidgon's Falconara. A Family Odyssey (provided in pdf).