Today’s choice
Previous poems
Kweku Abimbola
Dance With My Father
after Luther
I never danced with my father
more so beside him, sometimes
across in the clock face
of summer dance circles.
My father walks backwards
better than most walk forward—
so whenever he sewed his steps into the living
room carpet, I rushed to mirror my moon-
walking, until he froze,
froze like he’d been caught
by the beat.
But eventually, every good beat
releases, thawing him
allowing a new current to jolt his right heel
lick his leg, startle
his hips
jimmie his torso, electrocute
his shoulders before
departing through his fingertips.
Then he’d leave his hand dangling, dangling
close enough for me to touch
but we never touched— only the illusion of—
and that’s the trick,
and the trick continues through my body:
elbows, navel,
neck, and fingertips
till it’s my turn to pass the zap to you:
You see my hand, are you ready? Ready
to mimic what it’s like
to be held
and to make it look so good
make it look so clean
your audience will beg you
to do it
again!
Born in the Gambia, Kweku Abimbola earned his MFA in poetry from the University of Michigan’s Helen Zell Writers’ Program. He is of Gambian, Ghanaian, Nigerian, and Sierra Leonean descent.
Abimbola’s first full-length poetry collection, Saltwater Demands a Psalm, was published by Graywolf Press in 2023. The début collection was selected by Tyehimba Jess to receive the Academy of American Poets’ First Book Award. In 2024, Saltwater also received a gold medal Florida Book Award and the inaugural Nossrat Yassini Poetry Prize. His work interrogates the intersections of West African spirituality, ethnomusicology, cultural expression, and poetics to appreciate the legacies of Black literature on a global scale.
He has worked as a teaching artist for the Detroit-based literary nonprofit Inside Out Literary Arts and lectured in English and Creative Writing at the University of Michigan. Abimbola is currently an Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Loyola Marymount University. He is also the Poet Laureate of El Segundo, California.
www.kwekuabimbola.com
Elizabeth McGeown
The Ultimate Painting - Study for Portrait VII (Francis Bacon) A found poem using the text describing Study for Portrait VII on moma.org Seated on a throne-like gilded chair He endeavoured The image of open mouthed terror is a recurring...
Sarah Radice
Being Autistic I am handed a racket and ushered onto court. An avid tennis fan, I am awed by being in the place champions are made. But I realise that, although I’ve grasped most of the rules by watching tournaments on tv - in the safety of my...
Sarah J Bryson
Knitting It’s Grandma Gibson who starts me off gently correcting me, praising the stitches pointing out how it’s written on the pattern. Shows me how to cast on. Then Mum’s Mum, Grandma Gasson tries to improve my grip, gets me to wrap the wool...
Gareth Writer-Davies
Kenwood Chef I blow dust (an epidermis of powdered sugar) from the plastic body and think of what Mother conjured from spatula whip and grinder (each task with its own attachment) never tiring helping hands that saved time for the hundred and one...
D. Parker
D. Parker spends most of her days surrounded by books both at work and at home. In her free time she reads and occasionally lets words form on paper.
Lydia Harris
weather forecast for the funeral there is a chance of deer grazing of mica rising in stone of knee deep sphagnum of two blank pages there is a chance of roses of lips being sealed of starling clouds yielding of a gurgle in the ditch of snipe...
Anna Maria Mickiewicz
The state of war For Ukraine Storm. Broken spruces like matches In the Estonian forest. Spruces or pines? Broken our souls, Those, who did pass across, will not understand… Those, who did not pass across, will not understand As well ...
Sam J Grudgings
The birds are spies, they report to the trees The birds don’t grant the day without sacrifice. We feed them gold bullion in place of corn. We are starving. We gift them an audience to our momentary. Tomorrow has gone, so we offer air burials as...
Ilse Pedler
Jed of the Dodgems My brother said you can’t make a mountain out of a sow’s arse and at sixteen he ran away to join the fair; changed his name from Gordon to Jed of the Dodgems, grew his hair, slicked it back with Brylcreem perfected the art of...