This week our guest is Gianna Russo. Gianna is the inaugural Wordsmith of The City of Tampa, appointed by Mayor Jane Castor in 2019. She recently wrote “Glorious,” a poem for the Mayor’s second inauguration, and read it at the event in May, 2023.  

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 in 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. 

She is Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at Saint Leo University and 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. Her work can be found at www.russo15.wordpress.com