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Daniela Gioseffi | |
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 Gioseffi in 2006 | |
| Born | 1941 (age 83–84) Orange, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Occupation |
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| Nationality | American |
| Education | Passaic Valley Regional High School Montclair State University (BA) Catholic University of America (MFA) |
| Notable awards | American Book Award (1990) |
Daniela Gioseffi (born 1941) is an American poet, novelist and performer who won theAmerican Book Award in 1990 forWomen on War; International Writings from Antiquity to the Present (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 1988).[1] She has published 16 books of poetry and prose and won aPEN American Center's Short Fiction prize (1995), and TheJohn Ciardi Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry (2007).
Gioseffi was born in 1941 inOrange, New Jersey,[2] the daughter of anItalian-Albanian immigrant father,[3][4] Daniel Donato Gioseffi, one of the first Italian immigrants to win aPhi Beta Kappa in the United States[5] from the alpha chapter of Union College in Schenectady. Her mother was a war orphan ofPolish andRussian Jewish descent who worked as a seamstress and dress designer. Because of her mother's orphan status, and her father's large Italian family, Gioseffi grew up with a strong imprint of Italian American culture. She grew up inNewark and attended Avon Avenue Public School, later moving toLittle Falls, New Jersey, where she attendedPassaic Valley Regional High School and served as valedictorian of her graduating class of 1959.[5]
Gioseffi attendedMontclair University, majoring in English Literature and Speech and Theatre, graduating in 1963.[5] While at Montclair University, she began publishing poetry in the campus literary magazine. She won a scholarship to study World Drama at the well known Speech and Theatre Department of The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at CUA, Washington, D.C. Her first novel with Doubleday, Dell, and New English Library, was the feminist comedyThe Great American Belly Dance.
Gioseffi began her career as a civil rights worker and journalist forWSLA-TV inSelma, Alabama in 1961. Gioseffi graduated fromMontclair State University in New Jersey with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English in 1963. She was awarded a scholarship toThe Catholic University of America by TheNational Players, where she completed a Master of Fine Arts in World Drama in 1977. While there she performed withHelen Hayes at the Hartke Theatre and withAnne Revere atOlney Theatre, inBrecht'sMother Courage. Gioseffi toured inHamlet andTwelfth Night with The National Players ClassicalRepertory Theatre for a year.
Whilst with the National Players, Gioseffi met her future husband Richard Kearney. He served as technical director for that tour and then as assistant technical director at The Arena State, D.C. The couple had a daughter, singer songwriter, Thea D. Kearney, and moved to New York City, where Richard became technical director and designer at theGeorge Gershwin Theatre,Brooklyn College.
Gioseffi won an award from TheNew York State Council for the Arts, for her feminist poem-playsCare of the Body andThe Sea Hag in the Cave of Sleep, in 1971 producedOff Broadway in New York City. With a second award from the Council she published her first book of poetry,Eggs in the Lake, published by BOA (1977). Subsequently, Gioseffi editedOn Prejudice; A Global Perspective (Anchor/Doubleday: NY, 1993), which was awarded a Plougshares Peace Foundation grant as was her later anthologyWomen on War.
Women on War; International Writings from Antiquity to the Present (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 1988) won theAmerican Book Award in 1990 and was reissued in an updated edition during theIraq War (2003), in-print for over 25 years.[6][7]
Gioseffi has lived the rest of her writing life inBrooklyn Heights, New York City, where she created the FirstBrooklyn Bridge Poetry Walk[8] – now produced by Poets House every year as a spring fund raiser.[9]
Gioseffi published four more collections of poetry, two novels, and a volume of short fiction, includingBlood Autumn: Autunno di sangue, a bilingual edition of new and selected poems. Before retiring from teaching Gioseffi taught atBrooklyn College,Pace University, New York University's Publishing Institute, and The Manhattan's College of Visual Arts, and received a Lifetime Achievement Award in Education from The Association of Italian American Educators in 2003.[10] Gioseffi is the editor of Eco-Poetry.org[11] and PoetsUSA.com.
In the early 1990s, she moved toByram Township, New Jersey.[5]
Gioseffi's books, papers and correspondence are now housed as The Daniela Gioseffi Papers at theBeinecke Library of Books and Manuscripts atYale University Library and can be seen online.[12] Her work is etched in marble on a wall of the7th Avenue Concourse of New York City'sPennsylvania Station, with verses byWalt Whitman andWilliam Carlos Williams among other poets.[13]
