Adriana Oniță

Photo credit
Shawna Lemay

Biography

Adriana Oniță is a poet, artist, educator, translator, editor, and researcher with a PhD in arts-based language education. She writes and teaches in English, Romanian, Spanish, French, and Italian. Her multilingual poems appear in CBC Books, The Globe and Mail, Tint JournalThe Ex-Puritan, Canthius, filling Station, and in her chapbooks: Misremembered Proverbs (above/ground press, 2023) and Conjugated Light (Glass Buffalo, 2019). She was awarded the Canadian Literature Centre Poetry Prize in 2019, and was shortlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2021. As founder of The Polyglot, she is proud to have published more than 250 writers, translators, and artists working in over 60 languages. She is the editorial director at the Griffin Poetry Prize. Her debut book of poetry will be out with Palimpsest Press in June 2026. Discover her work at adrianaonita.com

Micro-interview

Did you read poetry when you were in high school? Is there a particular poem that you loved when you were a teenager?

Absolutely! As a teenager, I was obsessed with “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe. In my Grade 8 L.A. class in Edmonton, I even wrote a "remix" or parody of this poem. I was lucky to have brilliant teachers in junior high and high school who made space for creative, fun, inspiring poetry projects like that. I even remember analyzing Eminem's “8 Mile” for an English class.

When did you first start writing poetry? And then when did you start thinking of yourself as a poet?

I started very young, Poetry is embedded in my mother language and culture (Romanian). I remember memorizing and reciting poems at home and school at five years old. I began writing poetry in grade three, and continued throughout my schooling, but it wasn't until I studied with Derek Walcott (Nobel laureate in literature) in university that I gained the courage to start imagining myself as a poet. I was around 20 years old when I began to take poetry seriously, and incorporated it into my research, my teaching, and my community work. It was also in my twenties that I realized I can mix and play with the languages I know. I read bilingual poets like Gloria Anzaldúa, Erin Moure, Oana Avasilichioaei, Maurice Kilwein Guevara, Tato Laviera. So I now write in Romanian, English, Spanish, Italian, and French — sometimes within the same poem!

What do you think a poet’s “job” is?

I once asked a 10-year old the same thing and she said: “to inspire an absolute sense of freedom.” But I won't steal her answer (lol).

I would say a poet's job should involve a mixture of both individual and community work. We work at our desks, experiment with words and language, and hone our craft. But we must also remember that poetry, historically, has been a social and political activity. We must make space for others to thrive and to have their voices heard. This is why I consider myself a poet, but I've also simultaneously always been a community arts-organizer (with The Polyglot, the Edmonton Poetry Festival, the Griffin Poetry Prize, and more).

If you had to choose one poem to memorize from our anthology, which one would it be?

I would memorize "New Year's" by Nicole Lachat, because it's a poem full of hope and delight.

Publications

Poem title(s)
Hărnicie, Ie, Dor, Nădejde
Title
CBC Poetry Prize Shortlist
Publisher
CBC Books
Date
2021
Publication type
Periodical/Magazine
Poem title(s)
Landing in Edmonton, December
Title
The Art of Winter
Publisher
The Globe and Mail
Date
2020
Publication type
Periodical/Magazine
Title
"Strigoi" and "Lămurire"
Publisher
The Ex-Puritan
Date
2023
Publication type
Periodical/Magazine
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