Georgia A. Popoff is a community poet, editor, educator, and teaching artist.
Georgia is currently workshops coordinator for the YMCA of Central New York’s Downtown Writers Center in Syracuse NY, where she has taught poetry and nonfiction since the DWC’s opening in Winter 2000. The DWC is one of the few remaining YMCA Writers Voice centers founded by poet Jason Shinder in the late 1980s. The DWC also features the Young Authors Academy, for 6th – 12th grade writers, which Georgia piloted in 2012.
Many years a teaching poet in schools and community settings, Georgia has been poet-in-residence to numerous New York State school districts. She is an editorial and professional development consultant to writers, schools, and community-based organizations, and has presented at key conferences both nationally, including AWP, NCTE, Split This Rock, Massachusetts Poetry Festival, and in the UK .
Author of four poetry collections, her most recent book is Psychometry, released in late 2019 by Tiger Bark Press. Other books include Coaxing Nectar From Longing (Hale Mary Press, 1997), The Doom Weaver (Main Street Rag Publications, 2008), and Psalter: The Agnostic’s Book of Common Curiosities (Tiger Bark Press, 2015). Georgia’s work has appeared in literary journals, anthologies and web publications since the 1980s.
She is co-author of Our Difficult Sunlight: A Guide to Poetry, Literacy & Social Justice in Classroom & Community (Teachers & Writers Collaborative, 2011) with Quraysh Ali Lansana. They paired again to edit the anthology of essays, The Whiskey of Discontent: Gwendolyn Brooks as Conscience and Change Agent (Haymarket Books, 2017), commemorating the centennial of Ms. Brooks’ birth.
Her nonfiction has appeared in journals including Stone Canoe and Obsidian, and the anthologies Revise the Psalm: Work Celebrating the Writing of Gwendolyn Brooks (Curbside Splendor Publishing, 2017), and Wingbeats: Exercises & Practice in Poetry (Dos Gatos Press, 2011).
A senior editor for The Comstock Review for 20 years, and former board member of the Association of Teaching Artists, she has published critical writing in The Comstock Review, NY Foundation for the Arts Chalkboard, and the Teaching Artist Journal, among others. In the mid-90’s, Georgia was active in the Poetry Slam movement, competing in the National Poetry Slam 1994 and 1995, and has produced workshops, literary readings and spoken word events for more than 15 years.