Deborah Panko

Deborah Panko grew up in Thorold, Ontario near Niagara Falls, moving to Toronto to attend university. Early on, she held a variety of jobs from waitressing to crematorium receptionist to registered massage therapist, finally settling into a teaching ‘career’ that had begun with English as a Second Language in Algeria in 1973. Being a prolific dreamer, she kept dream journals as a record of her inner travels. Their images and patterns led to poetry writing.

Wanting to spend more time on personally creative pursuits, she retired early from the Toronto Board of Education where she had taught a variety of courses, her favourite being Writer’s Craft. She and her husband, Ron, moved to Cobourg in 2004, where she happily discovered other poetry writers at the Cobourg Poetry Workshop. Poetry writing is her habit along with biking, playing the piano, watching birds and reading the classics.