Adriana Oniță: Poetry requires a sacred ritual

Author Adriana Oniță

Adriana Oniță is a poet, artist, educator, editor, translator, and researcher with a PhD in arts-based language education. She writes and teaches in English, Romanian, Spanish, French, and Italian. Her debut poetry collection, Descântec For My Split Tongue, is published by Palimpsest Press / Anstruther Books. Her multilingual poems also appear in CBC Books, The Globe and Mail, The Ex-Puritan, Canthius, Tint Journal, and in her chapbooks: Misremembered Proverbs (above/ground press, 2023) and Conjugated Light (Glass Buffalo, 2019). As founder of The Polyglot, she is proud to have published more than 250 writers, translators, and artists working in over 60 languages. Adriana is the editorial director at the Griffin Poetry Prize and lives between Edmonton and Italy. In this interview, she explores how she believes that poetry requires a sacred ritual, her growth as a writer, and finding a publisher for her debut collection.

The multilingual craft of poetry: unlocking translingual rhythms

AO: Living between languages has shaped my writing style the most. I currently live between Marsala (on the westernmost point of mainland Sicily), Edmonton (at latitude 53 in Alberta), Jilava (the village I’m from in Romania), and Gaeta (a seaside town between Rome and Naples). At home, I speak English, Romanian, and Spanish with my husband and toddler. Outside the home, I mostly speak Italian and English. Naturally, I write, teach, and publish in all of these languages, and I often mix them in my translingual experiments. Mi diverto costantemente.

Rooted in community and mentorship

OCW: Has your writing evolved over the years? If so, how? Through writing experience? Reading a lot? Writing courses or communities? A combination, or something else?

AO: My growth as a writer has happened so gradually, imperceptibly even, that I had a moment of real surprise yesterday when I realized the depth of the education I’ve gifted myself in this world. Not just formal education—many poets pursue MFAs, but I took a different path: I studied Romance languages in my undergraduate degree, then focused on Spanish language/literature for my Master’s, and later pursued language education for my PhD.

Adriana Oniță's debut poetry collection Descântec For My Split Tongue

But there is another kind of education I’ve patched together for myself through books, languages, mentorships with poets I love, travel, translation work, teaching, editing a magazine for ten years, creating a multilingual community of writers, working for festivals, prizes, galleries—all the while making it a real priority to spend as much time as I can with my family and friends. I am only now beginning to see how all of this has shaped my poetry and writing, always in dialogue with others, across languages and borders.

OCW: Do you use social media to engage readers, writers, or publishers and, if so, which platforms?

AO: I enjoy using Instagram, and have found many poets and books I love through that platform. At @stanza.39, I share poem videos, process shots, writing tips, and glimpses of my daily practice in different languages, along with mini reviews of must-have books. I also like documenting practical experiments—like challenging myself to submit every day to a different journal, litmag, or prize—and sharing what comes out of that.

OCW: If you’ve been published, how did you find your first publisher?

AO: I was almost nine months pregnant when I began submitting my poetry manuscript, after two years of refining it with my writing coach, Tara Skurtu. We made a list of publishers whose poetry books I deeply admired, and I sent it out during their open periods. The manuscript eventually found its perfect home after I sent it directly to the editor at Anstruther Books/Palimpsest Press, following my Banff Centre literary mentor’s encouragement that it might be the perfect fit.

Palimpsest was already my top choice, though I had previously missed their open call. The poetry editor, Jim Johnstone, replied right away, and my manuscript was accepted within ten days. I was beyond thrilled. This is the press behind some of my all-time favourite authors—Shawna Lemay, Klara du Plessis (my Banff mentor), Kess Mohammadi, Sarah Yi-Mei Tsiang, Sadiqa de Meijer. It’s also the press I own the most books from—the ones I’ve carried dapertutto in my backpack, read to pieces, and replaced more than once.

Poetry requires a sacred ritual

OCW: What advice/guidance would you give to writers?

AO: Get to know your own “art circadian rhythms.” It took me a lot of reflection and trial and error to understand the times and conditions that work best for me—for writing poetry versus making visual art, translating, editing, etc. For instance, visual art feels most accessible to my brain; I can move in and out of it easily, so I’ve learned to use the in-between spaces for it. I’ll make a collage between a meeting and a workshop, doodle while waiting for the train, edit photos or videos on the bus, or stop to paint my surroundings on my way home. Poetry feels completely different to me. It feels more like a ceremony. There’s a before and an after. I need at least two dedicated two hours, usually at night. It requires a kind of sacred ritual. A seduction. Scaramanzia. It helps to know these art circadian rhythms so we can meet each practice on its own terms, and honour what our body already knows.