JoAnn Balingit is a poet, essayist and arts education advocate who grew up in Florida and lives in northern Delaware. She has two chapbooks and a full-length book of poems, Words for House Story (WordTech 2013). JoAnn spent January to May 2024 in the Philippines on a Fulbright fellowship researching Kapampángan culture, its endangered language and her paternal roots for a memoir in progress. Her writing appears in Asian American Literary Review, Atticus Review, The Common, The Nation, Poetry, The Rumpus and elsewhere. She believes in the sacred communal power of poems and stories, and collaborates with Delaware Division of the Arts to teach poetry and creative writing to seniors and high school students. She served as Delaware’s poet laureate from 2008 to 2015.
Image Description: JoAnn Balingit, a Kapampángan German American woman with olive skin and black hair, smiles into the camera. She's sitting outside on a sunny day with blue ocean, sky, palm fronds and monstera plants behind her. She’s wearing large round glasses, a red sleeveless dress and dangly earrings.