Category Archives: Residency

Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing 2025: my teaching!

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Two weeks after teaching poetry at the Ionion Center for the Arts and Culture on Kefalonia, Greece, I taught my 13th year at the Martha’s Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing: prose poetry & flash fiction, the lyric essay, and literary publishing…plus a writers life panel and my poetry reading. I’m a very fulfilled poet and teacher this summer! On top of that I have one more writing conference to teach at: the awesome Kettle Pond Writers’ Conference at Paul Smith’s College in the Adirondacks!

Day 8: My Poetry Teaching Trip to Kefalonia Greece continued

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Day 8 Poetry Teaching Trip to Kefalonia Greece: 2 morning cats, visiting the Mycenaean Cemetery of Mazarakata (1390 BCE) for a dramatized duologue from the Persephone Project written by Vicky Yiannoutsos, another visit to the transcendent Avythos Beach!

Day 7: My Poetry Teaching Trip to Kefalonia Greece…I gave a poetry reading atop Mount Aenos!!!

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Day 7 Poetry Teaching Trip to Kefalonia Greece: I gave a poetry reading atop Mount Aenos!!!

…at 5,300 ft the tallest mountain on the Ionian island of Cephalonia, Greece…on a mossy stone outcrop, surrounded by Greek fir, black pine, wild bellflowers, violets, and poppies…and generous people willing to pay attention to me lipping off for 20 minutes while on top of the world.

Here I am reading my poem “Come In Go Ahead Say Again” recently published online at The Normal School.

https://www.thenormalschool.com/blog/2024/11/21/come-in-go-ahead-say-again-by-christopher-citro

Day 5 continued: My Poetry Teaching Trip to Kefalonia Greece

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Day 5 Poetry Teaching Trip to Kefalonia Greece: After reading my poem at the Zervati Cave, a boat ride through Melisani Cave, a swim at Antisamos beach, sea bass for lunch in Sami, crawling around Ayioi Fanetes Monastery / the Acropolis of Kyatis, first views of Myrtos Beach, and basically a lot of adoring the Kefalonian mountainous countryside.

Day 5: My Poetry Teaching Trip to Kefalonia Greece

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Day 5 of my Poetry Teaching Trip to Kefalonia Greece: I read my poetry in a Greek cave! I read my poetry in a Greek cave! I read my poetry in a Greek cave!

The poem: “Hawk Shadow Here to Help,” temporarily retitled “κότσυφας Shadow Here to Help” in honor of the blackbirds singing around us.

The cave: Zervati Cave on Kefalonia Island.

Day 4: my poetry teaching trip to Kefalonia Island Greece

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Day 4 poetry teaching trip to Kefalonia Island Greece: walking the mountain town of Kastro, exploring the Medieval Church of Evangelistria (1508), an impromptu visit inside a mountainside villa with the angriest cat in Kefalonia, a gift of preserved bergamot oranges, trees full of bougainvillea dates almonds oranges, and Sophia’s awesome dinnertime story of the time she slapped a crooked priest.