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arianab.bsky.social
Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾
@arianab.bsky.social
610 followers 260 following 110 posts
poet, essayist, animé fan, cozy gamer, sportsball enthusiast, tree hugger, multivariate nerd 🎯

a day spent down a Wiki Rabbit Hole is a day well spent👩🏾‍💻

my📚: BLACK PASTORAL (UGA Press, 2023; winner, Academy of American Poets Lenore Marshall Prize)
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arianab.bsky.social
Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾 @arianab.bsky.social · Nov 30
wrote a piece that theorizes why/how Black people got/are into anime 👩🏾‍🎤

imo, Saturday morning Toonami + Representation (not in traditional “protag looks like me” sense, but in the structure of the story/world) = Black fandom!

some excerpts here, full story linked:

kenyonreview.org/piece/sho-ga...
You think back to those lazy childhood Saturday mornings, wiping the sleep out of your eyes as you searched the couch cushions for the remote, determined not to miss the next episode of whatever loud, bright, boom-crash-bang show the channel was airing that day. This was the height of leisure: no school, no need to get dressed or look even remotely presentable, no parents awake to interrupt your regularly-scheduled marathon (an early version of what we now call "binge-watching") with chore requests or boring errands-just a bowl of sugary cereal, an incessantly flashing screen, and an indulgent kind of innocence specitic only to the ritual of weekend cartoon watching. You feel a lament for that version of you, that harmless naivete that allowed you to fully immerse yourself in a fantasy world-a world where the rules actually made sense. A character's power was directly measurable by their level, which was illustrated by numbers and symbols that flashed on cards in a magic deck or a sparkling ball of light that indicated "evolution"—a transformation into a higher being. Everything the protagonist had, they'd earned. Every fight they won, they won by grinding to the level of strength required. You try to remember what it was like to believe that your world operated on a similar system, that all you had to do was work hard and believe in yourself and your dreams would eventually materialize right before your wide, sparkling eyes. A KENYON REVIEW = Anime is a genre that, perhaps more consistently than any other, relies heavily on tropes and common plot arcs to tell its stories. This is especially visible within the subgenre shönen (main article: Shönen), a form of "Japanese comics and animated films aimed primarily at a young male audience, typically characterized by action-filled plots" (Oxford Languages Dictionary). Shönen is bombastic, with fights and scenery that leap off the screen. It often doesn't take itself too seriously, and characters will frequently fight to what appears to be the death, only to be magically healed by some built-in plot armor. This phenomenon is a crucial element of what I call schematic Black representation in anime. The heroes have a cause and will fight for it until they drop, dedicating their whole lives to the achievement of a singular goal that, more often than not, represents some larger moral tenet of humanity: justice, love, freedom, revenge. In many ways, to exist as a Black person is to be fighting each of these battles, with all the requisite drama and blood and tears, from the very moment you are born into the world. You, like almost every shönen protagonist, are an outlier, an outcast, a never-should-have-been. Anime, with its constant violent battles and explosions and injuries and hard-fought wins, tells a story that, more closely than any other genre, represents both the struggles and triumphs of Blackness-the tiniest nuances that explain why, even though being born Black is to be dealt one of the hardest hands in life, the vast majority of us wouldn't trade our cards for anything. This bloody, stylized, death-proof hero's journey is an example of schematic representation whereby Black anime fans come to understand themselves as being represented by the genre, not just at a skin-deep level, but in a way that is perhaps more relatable and lasting in its effect; one that, in dramatizing the struggles and battles of its protagonists, demonstrates an understanding of both our material and interior lived experiences. Additionally, the characters aren't punished for justifiable violence. They are allowed, and generally encouraged, to run each other fades. They aren't demonized or labeled animalistic; rather, fighting is a means of self-expression. Each character has their own unique combat style that often aligns with an element of their personality or backstory. Taking, for the sake of argument, an agnostic position to unarmed, peer-level fighting among Black youth, one could understand anime as being representative of this long-standing in-group phenomenon. Don't start no fights, many a Black mother warns, but if another kid tries you, beat their ass. A contained, one-off fistfight has long been understood by many Black folks as an effective, if not flawless, method of conflict resolution among equals-but when taking place in a white world, these fights are often mischaracterized as symptomatic of some kind of inherent brutality and lack of humanity. In shönen, if you throw a punch, you better be ready to punch back-it's as simple as that. Conflicts are, in large part, resolved in the moment and between the interested parties, without the interference of law enforcement (because lol what laws) and policing tactics.
Reposted by Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾
upfromsumdirt.bsky.social
upfromsumdirt
ABSTRACK AFRICANA

haydens ferry review issue 71.
haydensferryreview.com/upfromsumdir...
HFR-upfromsumdirt's Abstrack Africana
haydensferryreview.com
April 1, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Reposted by Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾
aupresses.bsky.social
"I think it’s important to publish scholarship alongside poetry & to keep the two in figurative conversation in our collective consciousness, as well as physical proximity on the shelves of bookshops," @arianab.bsky.social writes @LiteraryHub https://bit.ly/42oN1OH this week....
Art, Liberty, Diverse Voices: Six Poets on Why University Presses Are Critical for Poetry
For anyone who pays attention to major literary awards, it will come as no surprise that university presses figure prominently among celebrated and vigorous publishers of contemporary poetry. In th…
bit.ly
April 1, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Reposted by Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾
aupresses.bsky.social
University presses have a finger on the pulse of contemporary poetry. In fact, poetry publishing play an important role in university presses’ mission to cultivate human knowledge.

6 poets discuss their work w/ university presses @literaryhub.bsky.social.
https://bit.ly/42oN1OH #PoetryMonth
Art, Liberty, Diverse Voices: Six Poets on Why University Presses Are Critical for Poetry
For anyone who pays attention to major literary awards, it will come as no surprise that university presses figure prominently among celebrated and vigorous publishers of contemporary poetry. In th…
bit.ly
March 31, 2025 at 1:30 PM
Reposted by Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾
sharkloverchick.bsky.social
And the great irony is they all have money, and none of them know how to be happy. They haven't figured out that money has a very limited ability to bring happiness. And above a certain amount, you get diminishing returns. Our relationships with the people we love is the true recipe for happiness.
March 30, 2025 at 12:49 AM
arianab.bsky.social
This. Their problem is that we have the nerve to be “broke” and still find a way to experience delight. “Broke” and still connected to others and the world through what we make.

They can’t fathom anyone could be happy without money being the driving force of that happiness.
samadams.bsky.social Sam Adams @samadams.bsky.social · Mar 29
They’ve already destroyed most artists’ ability to earn a living from their work; now they’re coming for their cultural capital too
March 29, 2025 at 3:29 PM
Reposted by Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾
tressiemcphd.bsky.social
Pet theory time!

Creativity is the Riddler to Casino Capitalism’s techno-fascist Batman. (I’ve been reading to kids a lot lately!)

A lot of the hate for writers, writing, etc is two things:

1. Alienation — they cannot do it & have never understood it.

2. Capital cannot fully capture creativity
arianab.bsky.social Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾 @arianab.bsky.social · Mar 29
I’m really starting wonder how much of the excitement I see from AI proponents at the idea that it will “take [writer’s] jobs” can be attributed to their resentment and unhappiness with their own careers?

It reads like “ha, soon you’ll have to work a job you hate, too!” …very weird.
March 29, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Reposted by Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾
nathanpspoon.bsky.social
This poem, first published in Gulf Coast and then in The American Sonnet: An Anthology of Poems and Essays, is included in my collection, The Importance of Being Feeble-Minded, due out next month
Kiddo What was it that slid through the field of my hand? A mountain. I will say it was a mountain, although it is no longer here for any other to see. It is elsewhere and doubtless sitting like a toad whose voraciousness desires to be appeased. At a key moment any hand may grow warm and as sustaining as a grove of pawpaw or sassafras trees. I will negotiate moving forward from here, forward into the thickness that buries all but the most willful homing. The seat is leather-like and brown and the back is mint green. What kind of sense does that make? Who knows? But at least people needing to sit have somewhere to do that. There are always turns as entirely unexpected as this. Often a bright pair of shoelaces appears as if out of nowhere.
February 9, 2025 at 7:20 PM
Reposted by Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾
jessicacuello.bsky.social
Here is a poem I wrote that mentions our mother feeding us with WIC, and even as I read about these cuts there is still shame mixed in with anger. May anger overcome shame. May anger take the form of clarity & action

shenandoahliterary.org/711/prayer/
Prayer – Shenandoah Volume 71, Issue 1
shenandoahliterary.org
January 28, 2025 at 4:18 PM
arianab.bsky.social
As a Writer! at least 235 of my 500+ open tabs are **critical research materials**

That “Final 4 Escaped Lab Monkeys Stick Together As They Avoid Traps In South Carolina” story is gonna make a helluva poetic metaphor… whenever I get around to writing it.
parkour-lewis.bsky.social The Narrator @parkour-lewis.bsky.social · Jan 27
If you ever needed a real life example of "non-sequitur"....

....just ask your ADHD friend to show you their open internet tabs...cause don't none of that shit go together 🙃
January 28, 2025 at 1:50 AM
Reposted by Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾
arianab.bsky.social
wrote a piece that theorizes why/how Black people got/are into anime 👩🏾‍🎤

imo, Saturday morning Toonami + Representation (not in traditional “protag looks like me” sense, but in the structure of the story/world) = Black fandom!

some excerpts here, full story linked:

kenyonreview.org/piece/sho-ga...
You think back to those lazy childhood Saturday mornings, wiping the sleep out of your eyes as you searched the couch cushions for the remote, determined not to miss the next episode of whatever loud, bright, boom-crash-bang show the channel was airing that day. This was the height of leisure: no school, no need to get dressed or look even remotely presentable, no parents awake to interrupt your regularly-scheduled marathon (an early version of what we now call "binge-watching") with chore requests or boring errands-just a bowl of sugary cereal, an incessantly flashing screen, and an indulgent kind of innocence specitic only to the ritual of weekend cartoon watching. You feel a lament for that version of you, that harmless naivete that allowed you to fully immerse yourself in a fantasy world-a world where the rules actually made sense. A character's power was directly measurable by their level, which was illustrated by numbers and symbols that flashed on cards in a magic deck or a sparkling ball of light that indicated "evolution"—a transformation into a higher being. Everything the protagonist had, they'd earned. Every fight they won, they won by grinding to the level of strength required. You try to remember what it was like to believe that your world operated on a similar system, that all you had to do was work hard and believe in yourself and your dreams would eventually materialize right before your wide, sparkling eyes. A KENYON REVIEW = Anime is a genre that, perhaps more consistently than any other, relies heavily on tropes and common plot arcs to tell its stories. This is especially visible within the subgenre shönen (main article: Shönen), a form of "Japanese comics and animated films aimed primarily at a young male audience, typically characterized by action-filled plots" (Oxford Languages Dictionary). Shönen is bombastic, with fights and scenery that leap off the screen. It often doesn't take itself too seriously, and characters will frequently fight to what appears to be the death, only to be magically healed by some built-in plot armor. This phenomenon is a crucial element of what I call schematic Black representation in anime. The heroes have a cause and will fight for it until they drop, dedicating their whole lives to the achievement of a singular goal that, more often than not, represents some larger moral tenet of humanity: justice, love, freedom, revenge. In many ways, to exist as a Black person is to be fighting each of these battles, with all the requisite drama and blood and tears, from the very moment you are born into the world. You, like almost every shönen protagonist, are an outlier, an outcast, a never-should-have-been. Anime, with its constant violent battles and explosions and injuries and hard-fought wins, tells a story that, more closely than any other genre, represents both the struggles and triumphs of Blackness-the tiniest nuances that explain why, even though being born Black is to be dealt one of the hardest hands in life, the vast majority of us wouldn't trade our cards for anything. This bloody, stylized, death-proof hero's journey is an example of schematic representation whereby Black anime fans come to understand themselves as being represented by the genre, not just at a skin-deep level, but in a way that is perhaps more relatable and lasting in its effect; one that, in dramatizing the struggles and battles of its protagonists, demonstrates an understanding of both our material and interior lived experiences. Additionally, the characters aren't punished for justifiable violence. They are allowed, and generally encouraged, to run each other fades. They aren't demonized or labeled animalistic; rather, fighting is a means of self-expression. Each character has their own unique combat style that often aligns with an element of their personality or backstory. Taking, for the sake of argument, an agnostic position to unarmed, peer-level fighting among Black youth, one could understand anime as being representative of this long-standing in-group phenomenon. Don't start no fights, many a Black mother warns, but if another kid tries you, beat their ass. A contained, one-off fistfight has long been understood by many Black folks as an effective, if not flawless, method of conflict resolution among equals-but when taking place in a white world, these fights are often mischaracterized as symptomatic of some kind of inherent brutality and lack of humanity. In shönen, if you throw a punch, you better be ready to punch back-it's as simple as that. Conflicts are, in large part, resolved in the moment and between the interested parties, without the interference of law enforcement (because lol what laws) and policing tactics.
November 30, 2024 at 4:03 PM
Reposted by Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾
callmevrana.bsky.social
Presented on @arianab.bsky.social's Black Pastoral on a MELUS-sponsored panel at #MLA25 yesterday - and (rightfully) many folks afterward expressed enthusiastic interest in the book and in taking up, reading, even teaching Benson's work! I love helping to bring amazing new poetry to wider audiences.
January 11, 2025 at 4:32 PM
arianab.bsky.social
Paige Bueckers is a DAWG
December 22, 2024 at 2:39 AM
Reposted by Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾
urbanaudacity.blacksky.app
Meruem, a chimera ant from HxH with a speech bubble
December 19, 2024 at 2:53 PM
Reposted by Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾
toddedillard.bsky.social
George Forman’s sons, all named George, to release an autoGeorgeography entitled “On Earth We Are Briefly Georges” in 2025 from Panini Press
December 19, 2024 at 4:32 PM
Reposted by Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾
taylorbyas.bsky.social
So, book news: Roxane Gay picked RESTING BITCH FACE for the Audacious Book Club!!! 😭 The first piece of news I get for my forthcoming book has completely knocked me over, and galleys aren’t even in. I am so grateful, I cannot even begin to tell you guys. I can’t wait to share the book with y’all.
December 18, 2024 at 8:10 PM
arianab.bsky.social
That “Don’t make gingerbread people live in a house made of themselves” commercial just triggered the most violent existential crisis 😟 like why do we do that?? it’s sick??
December 18, 2024 at 3:38 AM
Reposted by Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾
hanvanderhart.bsky.social
I have this poem taped up on my kitchen cabinet, and once in a while it just grabs me by the face, lovingly.

Denise Levertov, “Prayer for Revolutionary Love”:
That a woman not ask a man to leave meaningful work to follow her. That a man not ask a woman to leave meaningful work to follow him. That no one try to put Eros in bondage. But that no one put a cudgel in the hands of Eros. That our loyalty to one another and our loyalty to our work not be set in false conflict. That our love for each other give us love for each other’s work. That our love for each other’s work give us love for one another. That our love for each other’s work give us love for one another That our love for each other give us love for each other’s work. That our love for each other, if need be, give way to absence. And the unknown. That we endure absence, if need be, without losing our love for each other. Without closing our doors to the unknown.
December 16, 2024 at 11:39 PM
arianab.bsky.social
#nowplaying Mythwrecked! Knew I’d love this game the first time I saw the trailer, and it has not disappointed! Collecting cool stuff + unique art+ mystery = my ideal indie game! One of the most emotionally intelligent games I’ve ever picked up too—think Spiritfarer vibes.
December 16, 2024 at 1:52 AM
Reposted by Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾
haolunxu.bsky.social
This week I painted the Buddha hovering over Austin, Texas. 36x48 in, water-soluble oil. ⛅️
oil painting of the Buddha hovering over Austin Texas. Daylight with a southern live oak.
December 14, 2024 at 9:38 PM
arianab.bsky.social
New(-ish?) Black Love Poem out with underbelly mag, a journal that presents a both a draft & final version of the same poem!

Read below abt the editing & process of this poem that came after I was “done” with my first book (spoiler: it wasn’t done with me)!

www.underbellymag.com/spotlight-ar...
FINAL VERSION > LOVE POEM IN THE BLACK FIELD Jamestown, Virginia, 1622 I look for beautiful things to plant Alongside you in my mind: the shimmer Of horseflies’ wings as they fever Over a rotting fieldmouse, the mist settled over the waiting leaves. These new things called honeybees, All buoyant with excitement at being Let off the ship. Found another dead one Yesterday—whole, stinger and all, curled up Under a tobacco leaf. I won’t step on it. Not because I’m scared of the sting. Because they ain’t So different than us—jarred in darkness, Drug cross all that blue, made to labor Under a vengeful sun so some man’s tongue taste sweet—that I can call burying them underfoot Anything like mercy. We like the bees: Ruined, and so buzzing, humming, drowning Out everything but our own noise. I’ve seen the beast all that silence Makes of man. For you, I speak, Keep sugar on my lips. I open anew My eyes. Look at the flowers, they say, The miracles of God. and it’s all I can do Not to think about how pink is no more Than a thinner kind of red. In a flower, the bee takes A kind of bride, as I choose you—thirsting For a sip of something fuller than nectar, lighter than blood.
December 14, 2024 at 3:02 PM
Reposted by Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾
agordonreed.bsky.social
Worth a read!
December 12, 2024 at 3:02 AM
Reposted by Ariana Benson // the Word Hashira ⚔️✍🏾
osanimated.bsky.social
Video game music doesn't get enough credit. They really be in the studio cooking!
December 11, 2024 at 11:49 AM