bine ai venit!
Mă numesc Adriana. I spend my days writing poetry, making art, teaching, translating, researching, editing, and publishing other writers. The places I call home include JIlava (Romania), amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton, Canada), and Marsala (Sicily).
I’m a multilingual poet
I write poems in limba română, English, español, français, and italiano, the languages I dream, love, and work in. I am the author of two chapbooks: Misremembered Proverbs (above/ground press, 2023) and Conjugated Light (Glass Buffalo, 2019). In 2021, I was shortlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize and I was the 2019 winner of the Canadian Literature Centre poetry contest. My recent poems have appeared in Tint Journal, the Globe and Mail, and the Romanian Women Voices in North America series. I believe a writer’s work is to create spaces for all of us to thrive. Therefore, in 2016, I created The Polyglot magazine. In our first twelve issues, we have published 220 poets and artists in over 60 languages! I also work for the Griffin Poetry Prize, the world’s largest international prize for a single book of poetry.
I’m a visual artist
I have a daily art practice that includes painting, drawing, collage, digital art, video, poetry, and photography. Sobre todo, I love turning poems into paintings, or paintings into poems. In 2019, a solo show of my photography was exhibited at dc3 art projects in Edmonton. My art practice fuels my joy for teaching visual arts to others. At the Art Gallery of Alberta from 2010-2017, I taught art and developed art programs for children, youth, adults, and families in English, French, and Spanish. I continue to teach art online and facilitate monthly Multilingual Art Labs through The Polyglot.
I’m an educator
I have fifteen years of experience teaching languages and art in Canada, Italy, Spain, and Romania. I have taught undergraduate courses in language and literacy in the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta, where my students nominated me for a Principal Instructor Teaching Award. I also regularly facilitate workshops through Poetry in Voice / Les voix de la poésie, where I visit K-12 classrooms across Canada to inspire a love for multilingual literature. I love creating nurturing learning spaces for youth to experiment and push the boundaries of what language and art can do.
I’m a researcher
I recently finished my PhD at the University of Alberta in the Faculty of Education, under the supervision of Dr. Olenka Bilash. In my dissertation, I explored how youth can maintain their heritage languages through creative arts-based practices. In recognition of my unique contribution to both art and language education, I was awarded the distinguished Izaak Walton Killam Memorial scholarship and a Bacchus prize for my dissertation. Click here to find out more about my research projects combining art, anti-racist, feminist, and walking pedagogies!
Photo credits: First and second photo by Randall Edwards. Third photo by Lébassé Guéladé. Fourth photo by Adriana Onita.