Susan Ioannou (born October 4, 1944) is a
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...
who lives in
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...
,
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...
.
Biography
Ioannou was born October 4, 1944 to Frank and Margaret Thomas.
["Susan Ioannou." ''Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors'', Gale, 2008. ''Gale In Context: Biography'', https://www.gale.com/c/in-context-biography. Accessed 23 Oct. 2020.] As a young child, she wrote fiction, but by her teen years, she wrote more poetry than fiction.
In 1966 she received her bachelor's degree and a year later, her master's degree from the
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 ...
.
While attending the University of Toronto, she received the school's Nora Epstein Foundation award for poetry.
In August 1967 she married Lazaros Ioannou.
Ioannou taught English at
Bloor Collegiate Institute
Bloor Collegiate Institute (Bloor CI, BCI , or Bloor, originally Davenport High School and Bloor High School) is a public secondary school in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located at the intersection of Bloor Street and Dufferin Street, in ...
, for six years during the 1970s.
In 1973, she was the Vice-President of the Ontario Council of Teachers of English.
From 1980 to 1989, she served as Associate Editor of ''Cross Canada Writers' Quarterly.'' She also served as editor of ''Coiffure du Canada'' (1979-1980), co-editor of ''Poemata'' (1988-1989), and poetry editor for ''Arts Scarborough Newsletter'' (1980-1985).
Into the 1990s, Ioannou led poetry workshops for the
Toronto Board of Education
The Toronto Board of Education (TBE; commonly known as School District 15), officially known as the Board of Education for the City of Toronto, is the former secular school district serving the pre-merged city of Toronto. The board offices were l ...
,
Ryerson University
Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU or Toronto Met) is a public research university located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The university's core campus is situated within the Garden District, although it also operates facilities elsewhere in Tor ...
, and University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies. In 1985, she founded the writers' resource Wordwrights Canada, and in 1988, created its poetry course, which until 2017 ran online as Lessons in Writing the Poem.
Her poetry has inspired music by contemporary composers, Norwegian Gjermund Andreassen and Canadian Leslie Uyeda.
Work
Iannou's writing has appeared in a variety of anthologies including ''The Canlit Food Book'' (1987), ''Celebrating Canadian Women'' (1989), ''Kitchen Talk: Contemporary Women's Prose and Poetry'' (1992), ''Crossing Boundaries: An International Anthology of Women's Experiences in Sport'' (1999), and ''Myth Weavers'' (2007). Her poems have been published in numerous literary journals, including ''
The Antigonish Review
''The Antigonish Review'' is a quarterly literary magazine publishing new and established contemporary literary fiction, reviews, non-fiction articles/essays, translations, and poetry. Since 2005, the magazine runs an annual competition, the Sheld ...
'',
''Descant'', ''The Prairie Journal of Canadian Literature'', ''
Prism International
''Prism International'' (styled ''PRISM international'') is a magazine published quarterly in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Established in 1959, it is Western Canada's senior literary magazine. The magazine was started with name ''Prism'' ...
'',
''Malahat Review'' and
''Room of One's Own''.
Ioannou describes her process of writing poetry as "meditative" and that she draws from "details of everyday life." In one interview, Ioannou remarked, "Whenever I write poetry, I am relentlessly dissatisfied. Again and again, I try (and fail) to reach one ideal: In the largest meaning of the word, to be true. I admire any poet who can teach me how to give words a nugget's solid brilliance, how to make lines stretch or snap, how to lift a poem on a shout or a song. I am always searching for the poem that can instruct and amaze me. This search drove my literary study ''A Magical Clockwork."''
In reviewing one of Ioannou's earliest works, ''Motherpoems'', Louise Longo wrote that "Ioannou's work, at its best, has a street-wise toughness, coupled with an eye for detail that is effective. Unfortunately many of her poems are in need of ruthless editing." While Longo praised the emotional range of Ioannou's poems in this volume, she also perceived a judgmental attitude toward women who were not mothers and an assumption that women ultimately find fulfillment in motherhood alone.
Her poetry has been favorably reviewed by Mark Cochrane who describes her collection ''Clarity between Clouds'' as a reboot of the "quest for clarity and solidity in a blurry and crumbling posthumanist epoch."
Ioannou's book of poems about
mineral
In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid chemical compound with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. (2 ...
s and rocks, ''Looking Through Stone: Poems About the Earth'' was distributed in Ontario schools as part of a specialist curriculum. Her interest in writing about
geology
Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ea ...
grew when her son was completing his PhD work. Ioannou relates that she spent ten years learning and reading about geology and whenever something interested her, she tried to create a poem based on that idea.
[Lennon, G. (2008). Looking Through Stone: Poems About the Earth. ''Resource Links'', ''13''(4), 26. EBSCOhost Database.]
In 1990, Ioannou received the Memorial Award for nonfiction from the
Media Club of Canada and, in 1997, the Okanaga Short Story Award, as well as several grants from the
Ontario Arts Council
The Ontario Arts Council (OAC) is a publicly-funded Canadian organization in the province of Ontario whose purpose is to foster the creation and production of art for the benefit of all Ontarians. Based in Toronto, OAC was founded in 1963 by O ...
.
Of her 2016 poetry collection ''Looking for Light'', reviewer Sharon Berg writes: "She has a grasp of the element of time that stretches beyond her own stand on this earth and her poetry manages both to enlighten and delight us."
Bibliography
Poetry
*''Spare Words'' (1984). Pierian Press: Brandon, Manitoba, Canada
*''Motherpoems'' (1985). Wordwrights Canada: Toronto; (2016) eBook; (2017) Kindle Paperback
*''The Crafted Poem: A Step by Step Guide to Writing and Appreciation'' (1985). Wordwrights Canada. Toronto.
*''Familiar Faces/Private Grief'' (1986). Wordwrights Canada: Toronto;
(2016) eBook, (2017) Kindle Paperback
*''Clarity Between Clouds: Poems of Midlife'' (1991).
Goose Lane Editions
Goose Lane Editions is a Canadian book publishing company founded in 1954 in Fredericton, New Brunswick as Fiddlehead Poetry Books by Fred Cogswell and a group of students and faculty from the University of New Brunswick associated with ''The F ...
: Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada; (2016) eBook.
*''Where the Light Waits'' (1996). Ekstasis Editions. Victoria, British Columbia, Canada,
*''Read-Aloud Poems'' (2001); 2011 PDF
*''Coming Home: An Old Love Story'' (2004). Leaf Press: Lantzville, British Columbia, Canada; (2011) PDF
*''Who Would Be a God? A Debate in Poetry'' (with Lenny Everson) (2004). Passion among the Cacti Press: Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.
*''Balkan Poems'' (2005). PDF
*''O Canada'' (2005). PDF
*''The Merla Poems'' (2006). Wordwrights Canada: Toronto; (2011) PDF
*''Catalysts & Catastrophes: Feline Poems'' (2007). PDF
*''Looking Through Stone: Poems about the Earth'' (2007). Your Scrivener Press: Sudbury, Ontario, Canada; (2010) eBook; (2017) Kindle Paperback
*''Looking for Light'' (2016). Paperback, 2020 eBook
*''For the Love of Lazaros'' (2019). Kindle Paperback
*''The Dance Between: Poems About Women'' (2019). Kindle Paperback; (2020) eBook
Nonfiction/Instructional
* ''Ten Ways to Tighten Your Prose: A Systematic Approach to Improvement'' (1988). Wordwrights Canada: Toronto. revised digital edition, 2004.
*''Writing Reader-Friendly Poems Plus Writing Exercises'' (1989). Wordwrights Canada: Toronto; (2011) eBook; (2017) Kindle Paperback
*''A Magical Clockwork: The Art of Writing the Poem'' (2000). Wordwrights Canada: Toronto.
*''Holding True: Essays on Being a Writer'' (2008); (2010) eBook; (2017) Kindle Paperback
Children's literature
*''Polly's Punctuation Primer'' (1991). Wordwrights Canada: Toronto. (2004) revised edition.
*''A Real Farm Girl'' (1998). Illustrated by James Rozak. Hodgepog Books: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; (2010) eBook
*''The Hidden Valley Mystery'' (2010) eBook; (2017) Kindle Paperback
Fiction
*''Nine to Ninety: Stories across the generations'' (2009). 2010 eBook, 2017 Kindle Paperback
Reviewing
*''The Witch of the Inner Wood: Collected Long Poems by M. Travis Lane'', The League of Canadian Poets Reviews, 2017
*''Smaller Hours'' by Kevin Shaw, ''The Antigonish Review'', 2018
*''Practical Anxiety'' by Heidi Greco, The League of Canadian Poets Reviews, 2018
References
External links
*
Profileat Canadian Poets, hosted by
University of Toronto Libraries
The University of Toronto Libraries system is the largest academic library in Canada and is ranked third among peer institutions in North America, behind only Harvard and Yale. The system consists of 39 libraries located on University of Toronto' ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ioannou, Susan
1944 births
Living people
20th-century Canadian poets
21st-century Canadian poets
Canadian women poets
Canadian children's writers
University of Toronto alumni
Canadian women children's writers
20th-century Canadian women writers
21st-century Canadian women writers
Writers from Toronto