Joann Gardner is an award-winning poet and essayist. She received the Weldon Kees Award for her chapbook La Florida and a Poetry Society of America fellowship for The Deaf Island. Her most recent book, Heart's Core, was released in 2023.

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In 1988, Joann published a scholarly book on W.B. Yeats. Since then, she has published essays and reviews on modern poets, popular culture and poetry therapy. Currently, she is working on a series of historical articles for the Harpswell Anchor, a not-for-profit community newspaper in Harpswell, Maine.

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As a professor, poet and service-learning advocate, Joann has given presentations, readings and workshops at sites across the U.S., including Texas, Oregon, California and New York. From 2007-2016, she served as lead judge for the Florida division of Poetry Out Loud, a recitation program for the National Endowment for the Arts.

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Joann earned an M.A. from the University of York (England) and a Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University. She taught literature and writing at Florida State University for many years, and co-founded and directed Runaway with Words, a poetry workshop for at-risk youth.

 

She divides her time between Florida and Maine.