Kwame Opoku-Duku

Oct 21, 2024 | thecommononline.org | Kwame Opoku-Duku

Issue 28, Issue 28 Poetry, Poetry By KWAME OPOKU-DUKUWas it all simply adornment,watching the rain fall from the sun, or the mourning dove that carried the wallet-sized photo in its beak? Looking back, it was true— I had stopped seeing the beauty in it all, living from moment to moment, looking to be granted some small sense of pleasure, as if by respite or charity.

Jan 16, 2024 | joylandmagazine.com | Kwame Opoku-Duku

But from the very start, from the very first day we meet at a party in The Mission, I know she is destined to haunt me, the way everyone, everything, eventually does. She is wearing an olive-colored jumpsuit, cuffed to the ankles, white Chuck Taylors and a high-top afro that she wears like a deity. A mutual acquaintance introduces her as my poet friend Mari, and we talk for nearly an hour about her work.

Jan 11, 2024 | thecommononline.org | Adrienne Su |Eleanor Stanford |Kwame Opoku-Duku |William Fargason

New poems by ADRIENNE SU, ELEANOR STANFORD, KWAME OPOKU-DUKU, and WILLIAM FARGASONTable of Contents:Adrienne Su, “Solitude”Eleanor Stanford, “Lover, before the pandemic”Kwame Opoku-Duku, “Glory”William Fargason, “Holy Saturday”Solitude By Adrienne SuMy body rebelledagainst the amorphousnessof Americanmotherhood, which askedme to be availableas if I were fivewomen: two grandmas,a sister-in-law, an aunt,and me, whoeverthat was anymore(amorphous from the Greek a,without, morphè, shape).

Apr 5, 2023 | therumpus.net | Kwame Opoku-Duku

National Poetry Month Day 5: Kwame Opoku-Duku A River that Flows into an Ocean And then, to wish a part of it could remain, or to have just a little more time— a feeling not unlike shame or regret, but more nuanced, a soft stain that, within it, holds a kind of beauty, as if by the errant brushstroke of a watercolor. * In spite of myself, in spite of it all, I still look at your pictures, I still live in the memories of morning walks to the bodega, the ginger shots we drank under a cherry...

Feb 22, 2023 | yalereview.org | Kwame Opoku-Duku

That morning the thunder struck whilethe city slept—so loudly, millions of us woke uptogether, as if by spell or magic—the fog was so thick,I couldn’t see anything outside my window;there were only the sounds of the pigeons and sparrows chirping,their wings desperately flapping in unison,and, Beloved, it was glorious! I meantto tell you, later that evening, as we sat on a benchin that tulip garden in the Village, that years agoI met a prophet on the corner of 125th and Lenox.