Dr. Amanda Bennett

The 9th Carrboro Poet Laureate (2026- December 31, 2027)

Dr. Amanda Bennett (she/her) is a poet, cultural critic, and scholar of Black feminist thought whose work centers care, testimony, and collective imagination. She is the author of Working the Roots (Querencia Press, 2025). She currently serves as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Grant Operations Management and Creative Engagement with the Arts & Humanities Grant Studio at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Bennett’s work is grounded in public humanities, bringing scholarly insight into everyday community spaces through poetry, deep listening, and collaborative cultural practice. For over five years, she has hosted community poetry workshops and open mics across North Carolina centering care, healing, and collective imagination. She created and led the series Poetry as Pedagogy: Finding Healing and Community through Writing, featuring nationally recognized poets such as Crystal Simone Smith and Chet’la Sebree, and developed the Black Feminist Summer School through her education consulting collective, define&empower.

Her poetry and criticism appear in Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Triangle Poetry Twenty Twenty One, Jellyfish Poetry, Murder Journal, and Feminist Making, Sensing, and Doing, among others. She has performed at venues including Charis Books & More in Atlanta and Epilogue Books and Attic 506 in Chapel Hill.

Bennett also writes Woo in the Real World, a Substack that explores the intersections of spirituality, scholarship, and everyday life, reflecting her belief that poetry is a living practice of care, communion, and transformation.