Poetry on Brick Street Presents
JoAnn Balingit

JoAnn Balingit is Delaware’s poet laureate, appointed in May 2008 by Governor Ruth Ann Minner. She teaches poetry in schools, libraries and community centers across the state and advocates for poets-in-the-schools programming. She works with the Delaware Division of the Arts to bring poets and poetry to Delaware audiences, and to support Delaware’s writers.

As an Assistant Editor for book development with YesYes Books, JoAnn is involved in eBook development and distribution to schools and libraries.

JoAnn is the author of Words for House Story (WordTech Editions, 2013), a collection of poems celebrating “the house of our longings, our memory, and our hopes” (Fleda Brown).

Her previous publications include Your Heart and How It Works (Spire Press, 2009), winner of the 2010 Global Filipino Literary Award; and Forage, (Wings Press, 2011), winner of the Whitebird Chapbook Prize. Her poems have appeared in journals and anthologies such as the Best New Poets, DIAGRAM.2, MiPoesias, Smartish Pace, Salt Hill, Poets/Artists and Verse Daily.

“So much to read…to hear,”  a short essay by Christopher Yasiejko, talks about influences on her writing.

Recent honors include a Bread Loaf Bakeless Camargo Foundation Residency Fellowship. She loves woodland trails, White Clay Creek, Florida’s panhandle, the creatures of Hofstetter Pond, and surfing.