"Lara Bozabalian has earned her place as one of Canada's most talented poets." ~ David Silverberg
Lara Bozabalian
Poet, educator, and artist exploring memory, place and inheritance.
Poetry and Collage pieces are part of a series published by Milk Teeth Collective in PoetryXCollage in January 2026.
About Lara
Lara Ann Bozabalian is a celebrated poet known for her evocative language and profound insights into the human condition. With two acclaimed poetry collections, on a Canadian bestseller, and a passion for interdisciplinary collaboration, her work transcends traditional boundaries, engaging with themes of place, identity, and community.
Performance
Lara has featured at literary festivals across North America, Ireland, and in Singapore. A celebrated TEDx speaker, Lara also wrote and narrated Crowd the Schoolhouse, a short documentary that won Best Writing and Best Use of Genre at Hot Docs International Documentary Challenge in 2012.
She has lectured at several universities in Ontario on poetry, critical thinking, memory, and inheritance.
Milk Teeth Collective
Lara is the co-founder of Milk Teeth Collective, an interdisciplinary collaboration with visual artist/designer Una Janicijevic. The work explores the intersections of care, art, and equity through public interventions, zines, books and curriculum development. The Milk Teeth Collective strives to create spaces that honour the experiences of artist-caregivers and their children, reimagining galleries, sidewalks, and classrooms as sites of shared authorship. Recently, they launched the Art Audit, an exploration of public art spaces through the eyes and minds of children.
Public Art
Between 2022-2024, Lara completed The Poetry of Public Places, a broad public installation project supported by Canada Council for the Arts. This interdisciplinary work explored how poetry can disrupt and reimagine public spaces by embedding verse into the physical and digital landscapes of everyday life. With a focus on de-centering dominant narratives and amplifying marginalized perspectives—especially those of women, caregivers, and racialized communities—The Poetry of Public Places blurs the boundaries between the intimate and the civic, making space for stories that shape how we live and belong.
Educational Leadership
As the Head of English at a public high school, Lara has been a dynamic force in arts education over the last two decades. In 2008, she founded Be Heard: Festival of Student Voices, a large-scale initiative that has connected thousands of student writers with internationally renowned spoken word artists through workshops and performances. During the pandemic and after, she co-led with educator Alison Thorpe a virtual Writer's Guild to create a safe space for students from across York Region. At the school board level, Lara was honoured to build, alongside Indigenous Consultants, a model for the first Grade 11 English course dedicated to examining First Nations, Métis, and Inuit voices, now a model for teachers across the district.
Spoken Word
Lara is also a founding member of Toronto Poetry Project, which produces Canada’s most successful spoken word series, including Toronto Poetry Slam, BAM Youth Slam, and city-wide writing workshops. As a spoken word artist, she has represented Toronto at the Individual World Poetry Slam, Women of the World Poetry Slam, and the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word. In both 2014 & 2015, she was named in NOW Magazine as Toronto's Best Poet.
How to Grow a Future, pairs Una’s hand-cut collages with Lara’s poetry to cultivate slow, intergenerational dialogue between humans and the more-than-human world. Poems, images, and community reflections circulate like seeds through galleries, zines, classrooms, and public projections.
In 2025, Milkteeth Collective launched Art Audit: Children’s Voices in the Art World, a research-based pilot project that centers the voices of children and artist-caregivers in the evaluation of public art spaces. This research-based evaluation is supported in part by Balancing Act Canada and MOTHRA: Artist-Parent Project as part of the Level UP! initiative.
Who this is for:
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Organizations seeking to cultivate adaptive, creative, and purpose driven teams aligned with modern mindsets
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Educational institutions at all levels and particularly post-secondary levels aiming to invigorate curriculum delivery with cultural responsiveness, youth-centered engagement, and reflective teaching
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Arts & community organizations looking to support young voices and foster inclusive dialogue through spoken word, journaling, and creative inquiry
What participants will experience:
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Creative voice: Practical pathways for expression through spoken word, journaling, and visual poetic methods
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Inclusive insights: Tools to deepen empathy, cultural awareness, equitable participation, and voiceful learning cultures
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Transformative takeaways: Field tested strategies for integrating creative and critical practices into classrooms, team meetings, and organizational life
Recent Engagement Highlights:
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Conference keynote: York University 2022 International Conference on Mothering—exploring mother/artist identity post-pandemic
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Niagara University, April 2025 and April 2026 — leading teacher/candidate workshops on The Hearts and Minds of Modern Schools nd The Power of Care: Managing the Hard Stuff with a Soft Touch
Book A Workshop
As a seasoned educator, poet, and creative facilitator, I bring over two decades of experience—from highschool classrooms to university lecture halls, and from national poetry festivals to spoken word platforms. Reach out and connect;
I would be happy to tailor a workshop to your needs.
” One of the finest examples of wordsmithing I’ve ever laid ears on.”
~ Shayne Koyczan, author of bestsellers ‘Stickboy’ and ‘To This Day’