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6 September 2024
This has been a heartbreaking time with the loss of Fiona Bennett, the founder of the Poetry Exchange and a dear, close friend. Fiona was a rare and extraordinary person, daughter, sister, aunt, partner, colleague and friend -- an inspiration to so many around the world, sharing her extraordinary presence and shining a light everywhere she went, a light that was uniquely hers. Her light lives on through her family, her deep friendships, and her creative gifts as founder of both the Poetry Exchange and the Map Consortium, as well as the recently-released anthology Poems as Friends celebrating ten years of the Poetry Exchange, and now through her soon-to-be-published poetry collection, On the Brink of Touch, not to mention the countless people she touched, the people she connected, and the many creative ideas and projects she explored and led and inspired. She will be deeply missed, and my heart goes out to her mother and family especially; to all her dear friends in the UK, US and beyond, her many colleagues and creative partners; as well as to all those who were touched by her light, however briefly, or came to know her through her voice and words alone. 
Fiona Lesley Bennett
31 March 1964 - 6 August 2024 Michael Schaffer gives a beautiful tribute to Fiona before this recently released episode of the Poetry Exchange:
The World as Meditation:
A Friend to David Lewsey - in conversation with Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer https://www.thepoetryexchange.co.uk/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=substack Here is a recent poem of Fiona's at Anthropocene, a small sample of how her work contained her lightness of touch as well as her lighted way of being and knowing and seeing. Twilight https://www.anthropocenepoetry.org/post/twilight-by-fiona-l-bennet |
Andrea Witzke Slot
I’m a London-based author and artist with two books of poetry, The Ministry of Flowers (Valley Press 2020) and To find a new beauty (Gold Wake Press 2012) and a proud trustee and contributing artist of Fiona Lesley Bennett’s award-winning Poetry Exchange. Recent poetry and fiction can be found in US and UK journals such as The American Literary Review, The Rialto, Stand Magazine and Southeast Review, among many others. I've won fiction prizes with Able Muse and Fiction International and my first novel manuscript placed second in a Room of Her Own’s (AROHO's) Clarissa Dalloway Prize. I've placed in several other prizes and been short- or long- listed in many others, including the National Poetry Competition and the Bridport Prize. My third poetry manuscript is in its final stages of editing thanks to my talented friend and mentor Elena Karina Byrne, and I have a short story collection and novel in the works. An educator for almost 30 years, I taught in a North London primary school in the 1990s after doing a PGCE, in a community college in Texas while completing my grad studies at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD), and then at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) after completing my PhD, with many community workshops and mentorships in between. I’ve also been an editor at several journals and particularly enjoyed my work as an editor with Rhino Poetry and Fifth Wednesday while in Chicago. |