Catching Lightning with Ariana Benson
Interviewed by Angela M. Franklin
Ariana Benson (she/they) is a Southern Black, award-winning eco-poet from Norfolk, Virginia. Black Pastoral (University of Georgia Press, 2023) is her debut collection of poetry, which has won several prestigious awards. She is a recipient of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award (2025), the Academy of American Poets Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize (2024), Cave Canem Poetry Prize (2022), Furious Flower Poetry Prize, and Porter House Review Poetry Prize and a National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize finalist (2023). In 2021, she won the Graybeal-Gowen Award for Virginia Poets. Her poetry has been published in leading, top-tier journals such as World Literature Today, Kenyon Review, and others.
Interviewed by Angela M. Franklin
Ariana Benson (she/they) is a Southern Black, award-winning eco-poet from Norfolk, Virginia. Black Pastoral (University of Georgia Press, 2023) is her debut collection of poetry, which has won several prestigious awards. She is a recipient of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award (2025), the Academy of American Poets Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize (2024), Cave Canem Poetry Prize (2022), Furious Flower Poetry Prize, and Porter House Review Poetry Prize and a National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize finalist (2023). In 2021, she won the Graybeal-Gowen Award for Virginia Poets. Her poetry has been published in leading, top-tier journals such as World Literature Today, Kenyon Review, and others.
