For most writers, publishing a first book would be enough to make a summer memorable.
For WashU Continuing & Professional Studies (CAPS) instructor Deanna Benjamin, it is only part of a larger creative journey that will bring her work to audiences in Greece, New York and beyond.
Benjamin’s debut poetry collection, Blue Ionia and other poems, will be released this August by Finishing Line Press. At the same time, her poetry appears alongside artwork by artist Joni Zavitsanos in Village Saints, a collaborative exhibition that opened in June at the Theodoros Stamos Exhibition Hall in Lefkada, Greece, before traveling this fall to Fordham University in New York and, in the spring of 2027, to the Maliotis Cultural Center in Brookline, MA.
For Benjamin, the international recognition represents a significant creative milestone. It also reflects many of the same values that have guided her nearly two decades as a CAPS instructor: storytelling, lifelong learning and helping people tell their stories and express their ideas.
“I find it really important for students to find their voices,” Benjamin says. “I try to present them with opportunities for that kind of exploration in a non-judgmental sort of space.”
A Teacher Who Understands the CAPS Journey
Benjamin has taught writing courses at CAPS since 2008, working with students from a wide range of professional and personal backgrounds.
Her connection to the school is rooted in her own educational experience.
Unlike a traditional academic path, Benjamin earned degrees at multiple stages of her life and career, returning to the classroom again and again as her interests evolved. That experience shaped her appreciation for the adult learners who make up much of the CAPS community.
“I value the desire to learn no matter how old you are,” she says, “and the desire to explore knowledge and to take classes and get degrees that help further your career. To provide students a space to pursue their dreams, I think, is really important.”
That perspective continues to inform her teaching.
A Project Born from Friendship
The story behind Village Saints began with a friendship that stretches back more than 30 years.
Benjamin and Zavitsanos first met through Benjamin’s now-husband, LeRoy Lottmann, who had taken a printmaking class with Zavitsanos. The collaboration between Benjamin and Zavitsanos itself began unexpectedly three years ago.
“I sent her a poem one morning on a Sunday,” Benjamin recalls. “It was actually Greek Independence Day.”
The poem resonated deeply with Zavitsanos, who had spent years documenting the people of Lefkada through sketches. Soon afterward, she proposed pairing Benjamin’s poetry with her artwork.
“I said, ‘Okay,’ thinking, ‘Oh, this will be a fun little project,'” Benjamin says.
Instead, the project quickly evolved into something much larger.
“Joni is a bit more ambitious than I thought.”
What began as a creative exchange eventually became an international exhibition and Benjamin’s first published poetry collection.
Preserving Stories Through Art and Poetry
At the heart of Village Saints are the residents of Lefkada, a Greek island where Zavitsanos’ husband was born and where she has spent years sketching local villagers.
As Zavitsanos explains, “What started as sketches to document the village and pass summer afternoons became a sort of calling to record not only the villagers’ likenesses but also their experiences, their stories.”
Those stories became the foundation for Benjamin’s poetry.
Asked how the poems developed, Benjamin’s answer is simple.
“All of the above.”
Some poems were inspired directly by stories Zavitsanos shared about the people she had sketched.
“She would tell me the stories of the people, and I would synthesize those stories and put them into poems,” Benjamin says.
Other poems emerged from the artwork itself, while some were written independently and later incorporated into the project.
To better understand the community that inspired the work, Benjamin traveled to Greece last summer.
“I spent about 14 days in Lefkada,” she says. “I got a feel for the land and the landscape and the pace so that I could go back to those poems that I had already written and fill them out.”
The visit became an important part of the creative process.
“The trip was really meant to give me a feel and an ability to have a different lens for the revision process.”
Building a Collection Across Languages
The collaborative spirit of the exhibition carried into Blue Ionia and other poems.
The collection combines Benjamin’s poetry with Zavitsanos’ artwork and includes Greek translations developed with poet and translator Aliki Barnstone, professor emerita at the University of Missouri, and poet and translator Liana Sakelliou, professor emerita at the University of Athens.
“It was helpful to have both Aliki and Liana as part of the process,” Benjamin says.
The translation work became an important bridge between cultures and audiences.
“Being able to work with someone who was really fluent in English and someone who was really fluent in Greek was a good bridge.”
Finding Voices
Whether she is writing poetry, collaborating on an international exhibition, or teaching a creative nonfiction course, Benjamin returns to the same core idea: stories matter.
For the residents of Lefkada, Village Saints preserves stories that might otherwise remain within a small island community. For Benjamin’s students, writing often becomes a way to better understand and share their own experiences.
“I find it really important for students to find their voices,” she says.
This summer, the voices that inspired Village Saints will travel from a Greek village to audiences in New York. In the fall, Benjamin will return to the CAPS classroom, helping a new group of students discover and tell their own stories.