Students and faculty gathered at the Kirbo Center at the ABAC-Bainbridge campus for an intriguing night of poetry reading from Gianna Russo.
She has published many poetry books and has won awards for her work. Russo’s words captivated her audience with awe and curiosity.
Russo opened the evening by asking attendees what their relationship to poetry was. Russo was very engaging with her audience from the very beginning of the event when she requested, “Raise your hand if you are scared or intimidated by poetry,” which was met with the raising of many hands to indicate not everyone there had a passion specifically for poetry. Russo had her work cut out for her if she was going to change everyone’s opinions on poetry.
Russo started off by introducing her two books, “One House Down” and “All I See is Your Glenting.” Her first book was about her and her husband’s life and their hometown, and the second book was about 90 days during the pandemic. In this book, she wrote as many words as the date; if it was 10/1, she wrote an eleven-word poem that day. This went
on for 90 days.
Russo read all 10 poems, and the audience loved every one. Throughout the event, no one was on their phone or talking. Everyone was listening to the wordsmith as she read her
amazing poems to that silent yet
attentive room.
The audience loved the event and thought it was great. Gregory McNair said, “It was good, and she chose poems the crowd could resonate with.” Emma Dollar said, “The Publix poem stuck out because of details like the description of the smell of matches and how the man seemed intimidating.”
For those interested in supporting Russo, she has written the poetry collections “All I See is Your Glinting: 90 Days in the Pandemic,” “One House Down,” and “Moonflower.” More of her poems can be found on her website at russo15.wordpress.com.