Poetry Reading with Ariana Benson

Ariana Benson’s debut poetry collection, Black Pastoral (University of Georgia Press, 2023) won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. A southern Black ecopoet and storyteller, Benson has received various fellowships & awards including a 2025 National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg fellowship, the Furious Flower Poetry Prize, and others. Benson serves as the Assistant Director of the Ethel Waddell Githii Honors Program at Spelman College, where she facilitates creative writing and storytelling workshops for students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

This event is free and open to the public. 
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Thanks to a generous endowed gift, the Humanities Institute is proud to host the Garry Fleming Poetry Series. Working with our friends at the Michael Kuperman Memorial Poetry Library in the Department of English, this exciting collaboration brings nationally recognized, award-winning poets, and emerging creative voices to the University of South Florida throughout the year to consult with students in small workshops, as well as give featured public readings.