Janine Certo

Janine Certo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University (MSU). She holds a Ph.D. from Virginia Commonwealth University and specializes in contemporary poetry, creative writing pedagogy, and poetic inquiry. Her work explores food narratives of the Italian diaspora, ecopoetics, and the poetics of space and the body. Certo has authored three poetry collections, including Elixir and In the Corner of the Living, and a scholarly book, Children Writing Poems: Poetic Voices in and out of School (Routledge, 2018). She has received grants from the Spencer Foundation and MSU’s HARP program, as well as awards like the 2020 Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry.

• Education: Ph.D., Virginia Commonwealth University
• Affiliations: Department of Teacher Education, College of Education (MSU)

Her research focuses on fostering poetry writing in K-12 classrooms and intersects with food studies, diaspora literature, and ecocritical theory. Recent projects include a poetry manuscript Becoming Eve, funded by a HARP grant. Her poems appear in journals like The Cincinnati Review, Shenandoah, and Gastronomica, while scholarly articles contribute to Journal of Literacy Research and Language Arts.

Grants & Awards:

• Spencer Foundation Grant
• MSU HARP Grants (2)
• 2020 Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry (Second Prize)
• Editor’s Choice Award, Charles Simic Memorial Prize (2024)

She also serves as an Assistant Poetry Editor for Italian Americana.