Joanie DiMartino

Joanie DiMartino has work published in many literary journals and anthologies. Her first full-length poetry collection, Strange Girls, was published in 2010 with Little Red Tree Publishing. Her first chapbook, Licking the Spoon, was published by Finishing Line Press. She is a past winner of the Betty Gabehart Award for poetry from the Women Writers Conference, Kentucky, and was a finalist in the Cultural Center of Cape Cod poetry competition.

Her poems have been featured in several art exhibits in Lexington, Kentucky, including “Sideshow,” a collaborative project with the Women Artists Group; “Collaborations + Catalysts,” an exhibit highlighting combined mediums; and “Connections–We Are All One,” an interfaith exhibit, where her poem, “The Monks,” an experimental piece incorporating Gregorian Chant throughout the poem, was performed. DiMartino has had several poems presented by the East Haddam Plays & Players as part of their “Plays & Poetry” performance in selected locations throughout Connecticut. She was most recently featured in the exhibit “Women in the Arts,” a show by local artist Deborah Curtis, where her portrait and poem, “Self-Portrait,” was on display at ArtWorks in Norwich, Connecticut.

She is currently at work on several projects, including a collection of poems about the 19th-century whaling industry, a collection of persona poems from the perspective of militant suffragist Alice Paul, a haiku sequence/female nude collaboration with visual artist Deborah Curtis, a haibun children’s book with musician and illustrator Don Sineti, and the editing of two anthologies. Fabric artist Alison Luff is interpreting a selection of DiMartino’s poems in textiles, and her work is being translated into several languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, and Bulgarian.

DiMartino holds an MA in public history from Rutgers University. She worked in the history museum field for over fifteen years, and her poetry often addresses historical topics with a feminist perspective. She is a founding member of the women’s poetry group Mosaic, in Lexington, Kentucky, and is currently also a member of Poets & Writers Consortium East in Groton, CT. She hosts Soup & Sonnets, a monthly literary salon for women, and, along with performing poetry, she reviews books and leads workshops and discussion groups.