Anna Citrino

Writing is simultaneously a journey inward and a reaching outward to connect with the world. It is a way to enter inside a door of deep listening, and a vehicle for noticing the small moments that create our realities. The world is full of wonders. When we look closely with curiosity, we learn to see the depth of our connection to the world around us.

An explorer of the world, I write both essays and poetry as a way to examine locations, as well as to observe the journey through time. My first chapbook, Saudade, is a series of poems exploring loss and change in a variety of settings. My second chapbook, To Find a River, is a series of meditations on feminine identity.

I love learning about other cultures. My recent book, A Space Between, is an exploration of the immigrant experience at the turn of the last century told in linked poems through the eyes of a southern Italian immigrant family as they strive to make a home while living between worlds and the difficult realities they confront as they cope with complex challenges. Many people hold stories of migration and immigration within their heritage. We are many selves and are always on the path of becoming. The life changes we make as we leave our homes shape us in significant new ways. Each of the several cultures I've lived in have expanded my understanding of the world, helped me to see myself in others, and to appreciate the variety of ways of being. Writing A Space Between was a way to work to embody the lens of a family of a specific culture over a long span of time. Through research and using my imagination, I learned about the journey of change and the effort to stretch into new places of being beyond the borders of the places and histories tying us to our origins.

I am a native Californian who has lived abroad working as a teacher in six different countries. I received my MA from the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College, Vermont. I write regularly on my blog, Poetry, Place, and Pilgrimage, and have published poems in a variety of literary magazines including Bellowing Ark, Canary, The Evening Street Review, Paterson Literary Review, phren-z, and La Piccioletta Barca. In 2019 I was nominated for a Pushcart prize.

I love to bicycle, swim, scuba dive, garden, hike, take photos, am working on learning Spanish, and am currently learning to draw through drawing trees with pen and ink.