“Make It Beautiful” is an interactive poetry reading and writing session. Tampa poet and the city’s inaugural Wordsmith, Gianna Russo, will read and discuss poems from her books One House Down and All I See is Your Glinting. She will discuss some of the techniques and strategies used in the poems, then lead participants through a brief writing exercise that will enable them to generate the first draft of their own new poem. The session will end with a book signing.
Participants should bring tablets or notebooks and pens for writing.
This Ramble is FREE with registration. Each attendee must register separately.
Not suitable for children under 16.
ABOUT THE LEADER
Intsagram: @giannarusso15
Website: russo15.wordpress.com
Gianna Russo is the inaugural Wordsmith of The City of Tampa, appointed by Mayor Jane Castor in 2019. She wrote and performed “Glorious,” a new poem for the mayor’s second inauguration in 2023. Russo was a 2003 Fellow in Poetry at Hambidge where she wrote poems that would appear in her first book. Russo is the author of the poetry collections, All I See is Your Glinting: 90 Days in the Pandemic, with photographer Jenny Carey (Madville Publishing, 2022); One House Down (Madville Publishing, 2019); and Moonflower, winner of a Florida Book Award. She has published poems or forthcoming in Plant/Human Connection, Green Mountains Review, Gulf Stream, Negative Capability, Crab Orchard Review, Apalachee Review, The Sun, Poet Lore, saw palm, The MacGuffin, Florida Review, Tampa Review, Ekphrasis, Florida Humanities Council Forum, Karamu, The Bloomsbury Review, and Calyx, among others. Russo is Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at Saint Leo University where she teaches in the graduate and undergraduate programs. She is the founding editor of YellowJacket Press, which published chapbooks by over 40 Florida poets from 2006-21. A third-generation Tampa native, a mother and grandmother, Gianna lives in an almost 100-year old bungalow with her husband Jeff Karon and their cat Gingko. She and Jeff travel to their family home in Western North Carolina regularly to enjoy the glorious mountain views.
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Hambidge Rambles are nature walks and creative talks, and vice versa. They take place throughout the year and are led by experts in fields like botany, biology, poetry, history, art, music and more. Each Ramble is a fascinating lesson about our natural and creative world.