POET

Dreaming in Mourning

Inviting the reader on a personal journey, Benin Lemus’ poems explore complex politics in the 21st Century, motherhood, racial and gender-based violence, and gentrification, yet leave the reader plenty of emotional room to laugh and cultivate joy.

“Benin’s poems can be tender or unapologetically ferocious... [She] makes poems that invite us back to our lives; that invite us to see into life with unflinching honesty and compassion.”

—Tim Seibles, former Virginia Poet Laureate, author of Voodoo Libretto (Etruscan Press), and finalist judge for the 2022 Furious Flower Poetry Prize, for which Benin received the Honorable Mention award.

Praise for Dreaming in Mourning

Poet Benin Lemus's moving debut collection Dreaming In Mourning brings readers into the interstices of the human experience. The intimacy of these subtle poems is seen in this line from “Recipe for Keeping a Secret”: “Bury it like the wrapper from stolen candy / tucked in the folds of a sofa with pennies. // Swallow hard like pink pills stuck in the throat, / impossible to wash down.” Benin Lemus is a poet whose voice demands attention.

Dr. Michael Datcher (Author of Americus; Clinical Assistant Professor, NYU)

We are on alert from the first lines of the first poem. This collection will take us from “the rubble of disaster, to the rapture of ravenous love.” Benin pulls no punches in this expression of her deepest emotions, emotions we all experience but which seldom find such an eloquent way to be conveyed. She gives voice to the experience of being a Black woman in the United States in the 21st Century. Pain, grief, and anguish all find agency in her words. But so does the joy of living life, motherhood, neighborhoods, and nature. She gives voice to the human condition. I hold deep gratitude for Benin's honesty and vulnerability. She has touched her heart and shared it with us, allowing us to connect with our own.

Mary Stancavage (Co-Founder & Teacher, Meditation Coalition; Host of the Undefended Dharma Podcast)

Between the “audacity of breath” and “the seafloor filled with songs of the drowned,” “outbreaks of beauty” written on these pages hold the medicine a body asks for and the lessons a soul requires. I can now say that after reading this, I have been to the country of Benin, and there she has shown me her dreams.

V. Kali (Author of Hymn; Coordinator of The World Stage Anansi Writers Workshop)

Performances & Publications

Benin has been a performer &/or panelist at:

Benin has been published in: