A Way With Words

Spartan Spotlight: Gianna Russo MFA ’17

By Katherine Laws

Gianna Russo MFA ’17 is the inaugural wordsmith for the City of Tampa.

A Way With Words
Gianna Russo MFA ’17 is the inaugural wordsmith for the City of Tampa. Photograph: Courtesy of Gianna Russo MFA ’17

“Hope, help and heart form a haven in Robles Park,” Gianna Russo MFA ’17 read aloud to the excited, masked children gathered around her in November 2020. The words were from one of her poems, which accompanied the unveiling of a mural at an afterschool program in the Robles Park neighborhood of Tampa.

That’s just one of many things she’s done as the City of Tampa’s inaugural wordsmith, a 2020-2022 honorary position she was appointed to by Mayor Jane Castor ’81. The role is part of the mayor’s Art on the Block initiative, which makes art and artists accessible to all neighborhoods.

Russo, who has lived in Tampa her entire life, is also a published poet and an assistant professor of English and creative writing at Saint Leo University in Saint Leo, FL. But the wordsmith job is particularly special to her. Russo feels excited to use her gifts and local connections to give back to the community she knows and loves. “I’m really happy to be doing this,” she says.

This April, Russo created a contest called Tell It, Tampa that called on locals to submit poems about Tampa in honor of National Poetry Month. “There were very skillful writers,” Russo says. “And there were people who just kind of wrote from their heart. And they were all wonderful.”

For her latest project as wordsmith, Tampa Writers Harvest, she gathered more than 30 local writers to perform readings in November. Guests watched virtually and donated to Metropolitan Ministries, which helps homeless families in Tampa. Some of the writers involved were from the UT community.

The UT connection is strong in Russo’s family — in fact, both of her parents are Spartans. Her father attended on the G.I. Bill after serving in World War II. (His classmates could likely tell that he’d traveled from Brooklyn, NY, because he arrived wearing a three-piece wool suit.) Her mother, a second-generation Tampa native, met her father at the University, where they both majored in theatre.

“UT is definitely in my blood,” says Russo, “and maybe I have it to thank for my existence!” One of her fondest UT memories is working at the Henry B. Plant Museum — “the gem of Tampa” — from 2007-2011 as education coordinator and grant writer. In the years since, she’s had two books of poetry published: Moonflower and One House Down. A third, All I See Is Your Glinting, will be published in 2022.

One of the biggest lessons she passes on to her students is to never give up. “I tell them, ‘If you want to be successful, show up and do the work,’” says Russo. “It took 15 years to publish my first book of poetry. That was just pure perseverance.”