Daniela Gioseffi is a poet and novelist whose work has appeared in such journals as Ms., Choice, Antaeus, The Nation and The Paris Review, as well as in such noted anthologies as Contemporaries (Viking), Rising Tides (Simon & Schuster) and We Become New (Bantam).
Ms. Gioseffi is also known for her work as a multimedia artist. Her performance of The Birth Dance of Earth — the so-called “belly dance” — which includes music and poetry of her own composition, has been critically acclaimed in America and Europe. And she has received award grants in both poetry and multimedia from the Creative Artists Public Service Program of the New York State Council on the Arts.
“I am a neo-pagan reviving the shaminist tradition,” Daniela Gioseffi has written about herself. “What I really aspire to is healing some of the rifts in the 20th Century American psyche. In the beginning, poetry, dance, music were all part of the same ritualistic aspiration.”
To that end Ms. Gioseffi has spent much of the past several years as a professional actress/singer, as well as a teacher of creative writing — singing, reciting, dancing and performing poetry in colleges, universities, theatres, museums, senior citizen centers, public schools, parks and prisons.
Eggs in The Lake has been issued in a first edition of twelve hundred copies. Seven hundred copies are in paper and four hundred and fifty copies are in cloth. Fifty additional copies have been specially bound by Gene Eckert in quarter cloth and French papers over boards; twenty-six copies are lettered A-Z and signed by Daniela Gioseffi and John Logan; ten copies are numbered I-X, signed by both poets, and include a poem in holograph by Daniela Gioseffi; fourteen copies are numbered i-xiv, signed by both poets, and retained for presentation purposes.
Daniela Gioseffi, poet, novelist, editor, critic, multi-media performer, educator-achieved critical acclaim for her first book of poems, Eggs in the Lake (Boa Editions, Ltd., Brockport, NY 1979). Nona Balakian, for whom the National Book Critic’s Circle Award in criticism has been named — former reviewer for The New York Times and author of Critical Encounters — wrote of Gioseffi’s first book of poetry: “One of the finest new poets around. Her work overflows with poetic vision. Nothing is ever pretentious or done for effect, She’s achieved what the surrealists hoped for poetry.” Gioseffi’s novel, The Great American Belly, was published by Doubleday & Dell, New York, New English Library, London, and Graficki zavod Hrvastske, Zagreb, 1977-79. Larry McMurtry, Pulitzer and National Book Award Winner, called the novel: “Engaging, filled with energy…irresistable writing,” in The Washington Post.
Gioseffi was a featured speaker on world peace and disarmament at the Barcelona International Bookfair, 1990, and the Miami International Bookfair, 1991, where she was presented with an American Book Award for her edited and annotated, international compendium Women on War (Touchstone, Simon & Schuster, New York, London, 1988, and Weiner Frauenverlag, Vienna, 1992). Carl Sagan called it: “A book of searing analyses and cries from the heart….” She has presented her work from the University of Venice to the BBC at Oxford and been interviewed by El Pais, Madrid. She began her career as a journalist in Selma, Alabama, 1961, during the civil rights movement, integrating Southem television. She’s worked in the Gandhian world peace and justice movement ever since.
Her book, On Prejudice: A Global Perspective (Anchor Doubleday, New York, London and Japan 1993) won a grant award from The Ploughshares Fund: World Peace Foundation. Her translations of the Caribbean poet, Carilda Oliver Labra, Dust Disappears, with a foreword by Gregory Rabassa, will appear from Cross-Cultural Communications, Merrick, New York, in 1995. Her poems have been published in magazines and anthologies throughout the US and Europe. Her poetic plays, “The Sea Hag in the Cave of Sleep” and “Daffodil Dollars” have been produced Off-Broadway. She lived for nearly thirty years in New York City before settling back in her home state of New Jersey. Through the 1980s, Gioseffi served on the nominating committee for The Olive Branch Book Awards of the Writers and Publishers Alliance. She has been a professional actress, dancer, singer composing lyrics for the poet’s harp. She’s been heard on National Public Radio; CBC Canada; and the BBC (UK). She won PEN’s 1990 Short Fiction Award for “Daffodil Dollars” (from her stories: The Psychic Touch), aired on N.P.R.’s “The Sound of Words.” Her poems, stories, criticism, essays, and interviews have appeared in major press books from Houghton Mifflin, Viking, William Morrow, Harper & Row, Oxford University Press, Faber & Faber, Doubleday, Simon & Schuster, and in leading periodicals, such as The Paris Review, Ms., The Nation, Confrontation, Contact II, Antaeus, Choice, American Book Review, VIA, The New York Times, and Library Journal for twenty-seven years.
Daniela Gioseffi, poet, novelist, playwright, performer, has travelled widely, presenting her poetry throughout North America and Europe. She has lectured at universities, cultural centers and international bookfairs, in Madrid, London, New York, California, Barcelona, and Venice on issues of world peace, and performed her works for National Public Radio and Pacifica Radio in the U.S., CBC, Canada, and the BBC in Oxford and London. Her Women on War: International Voices (Touchstone, Simon & Schuster, New York, N.Y.) won an American Book Award, 1990, and was published in Vienna and London. Her novel, The Great American Belly (Doubleday, New York, and New English Library, London), was optioned for a screenplay by Warner Bros. Her fiction, Daffodil Dollars won a PEN, 1990 short fiction award and was aired on National Public Radio. In 1993, Anchor Books published her world compendium, On Prejudice: A Global Perspective. It won a Ploughshares Fund, World Peace Foundation Award. Poems contained in her first book, Eggs in the Lake (BOA Editions, Brockport, N.Y.), won award grants from The New York State Council on the Arts, National Endowment on the Arts.