Personal
Mysteries

Poems by Caroline Morgan Di Giovanni

From a remembered childhood to lives altered by war, these poems move across time and place, searching for what memory, faith and the human voice can hold.

Find the book Explore the voices

Toronto · Poet & editorScroll to discover

Published cover of Personal Mysteries by Caroline Morgan Di Giovanni: red and black typography above distorted black-and-white flowers

01 Reflections & voices

From the anthology
to the monologue.

As an editor, Caroline has brought Italian-Canadian writers together on the page. In Personal Mysteries, she brings distinct voices into her own poetry—from childhood recollection to two dramatic monologues.Caroline Morgan Di Giovanni · Poet & editor

02 The perspectives in Personal Mysteries

A remembered child.
A woman speaking.

A background in drama. A collection of distinct voices. Explore a perspective, then place two beside each other to consider the change in viewpoint.

A perspective in the collection / 01

The remembered child.

Childhood memories sit within a collection that also moves into distant times and other people’s lives. Here, the scale is intimate: a life recalled.

Context & form: Childhood and remembered experience. Memory is one perspective among the collection’s distinct voices.
A reading question: What changes when a remembered life is placed beside a life imagined?

Collection description · Mosaic Press ↗

These are reading notes, not poem excerpts. Perspective names and reading questions are editorial; subjects and forms are drawn from the publisher’s description and book listing. Floral details throughout are drawn from the published cover.

The collection also includes a refugee’s arrival, women re-reading sacred stories and two first-person monologues. Follow the source links above to read more about the book.

03 Caroline Morgan Di Giovanni

Writing poems.
Making room for
other voices.

Pennsylvania → Toronto, 1966
English at Toronto · Drama at Tufts

The poet and the editor belong in the same portrait.

Caroline grew up near Philadelphia and came to Toronto in 1966 to study at St. Michael’s College. She graduated in English, then earned a master’s degree in Drama at Tufts University in 1972.

Alongside her own poetry, she has edited anthologies of Italian-Canadian writing across several decades. Her literary life includes gathering other writers’ voices as well as developing her own.

Poet: From Looking at Renaissance Paintings and Other Poems to Personal Mysteries.
Editor: Italian Canadian Voices in 1984 and 2006; Bravo! in 2012.
Drama: An MA from Tufts, and a new collection that culminates in first-person monologues.

04 A literary record

Her poems.
The voices she gathered.

Read the two strands of Caroline’s work together: original poetry and anthologies of Italian-Canadian writing.

01 / Original poetry

2008
Looking at Renaissance Paintingsand Other Poems
Quattro Books · Her first poetry collection
2013
Second Collection
LyricalMyrical Books
2021
Portrait Gallery
Poetry chapbook · G. F. Graphics
2021
Poems for Two WorldsPoesie per due mondi
Bilingual poetry · Translations by Giulia De Gasperi
2025
Personal Mysteries
Mosaic Press · Visit the publisher ↗

02 / Selected editorial work

1984
Italian Canadian VoicesAn Anthology of Poetry and Prose, 1946–1983
Editor · Mosaic Press
2006
Italian Canadian VoicesA Literary Anthology, 1946–2004
Editor · Mosaic Press
2012
Bravo!A Selection of Prose and Poetry by Italian Canadian Writers
Editor · Quattro Books

Bibliography: League of Canadian Poets profile ↗

05 Return to the collection

An editor gathers.
A poet gives voice.

From the anthologies to the dramatic monologues, return to Caroline’s own poetry in Personal Mysteries.

Personal Mysteries at Mosaic Press

Poetry · Mosaic Press · 2025

PersonalMysteries

From the anthologyto the monologue.

A remembered child.A woman speaking.

The remembered child.

Two monologues. A woman’s voice.

Writing poems.Making room forother voices.

Her poems.The voices she gathered.