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Congratulations to Gabriel Awuah Mainoo, this year's Diann Blakely Emerging Poet!
"A Pathogenesis of the First Slave Ship"
by Gabriel Awuah Mainoo
"A Pathogenesis of the First Slave Ship"
by Gabriel Awuah Mainoo
This poem was chosen by Karla Kelsey, the 2025-2026 Diann Blakely Poet.
bring me to where
my blood runs
—Wanda Coleman
…this is a water story sprout out of dust.
a red crowded chrysanthemum disperses
on the shores like secrets of a nun’s
threadbare pillow. let their picnic be merry
like vultures circling a leopard’s liver.
the parables unfold from wrinkles of an antique
sun. before we were taken, we mastered
the elements of sky; how to nod to choreography
of torrents, the anatomy of gull flight, the way
it slowly glides left & spears out its talon
to caution. mama was a trader & that night
gave up her ingathering for a mirror. the merchant
said the mirror was holy, had crossed the Red Sea;
anything she raises to the surface will fatten &
multiply. faith beaten out of a chameleon skin.
a dead lizard lying naked by the roadside, shows
God his swollen stomach, blameless; that it did
not eat the bug that makes the loam fertile.
that is how a man proves his innocence.
stands naked under a palm tree & eats dry gentian
root until a white butterfly folds into his right ear.
let their picnic be merry like vultures circling
a leopard’s liver. i know this merchant who
brought the bible before─ mugged my brother
of diamond seeds. after, taught me to pray without
imagining the thief’s blood warming in between
the cold of my knuckles. instructed us to rinse
ourselves with rain, caught sacredly in a gourd;
the purity through which God looks & whittles
a man out of a child’s rib.
let their picnic be merry like vultures circling
a leopard’s liver. i watched you drink the air,
belly full─ watched famished travelers walk on
their heads with bundles of bones thirsty for
air & soil. let their picnic be merry like vultures
circling a leopard’s liver. the carcass smells of
distant places, like odor of yellow light breaking
in the eyes of nervous men who carry the brain of
this poem. let their picnic be merry like vultures
circling a leopard’s liver. let their picnic be
merry like vultures circling a leopard’s liver.
let their picnic be merry. this is a water story
sprout out of dust.
a red crowded chrysanthemum disperses on
the shores like secrets of a nun’s threadbare
pillow. let their picnic be merry like vultures
circling a leopard’s liver. let their picnic be merry…
Gabriel Awuah Mainoo
Gabriel Awuah Mainoo
Gabriel Awuah Mainoo is a Ghanaian creative practitioner. He has received fellowships from the Hong Kong Baptist University, Aarhus Literature Center in Denmark, the Library of Africa, and the African Diaspora, Wintertuin Curacao, and others. He is a grant recipient of the Danish Art Foundation through the South Gate Creative Writing School. Mainoo is the author of “Lyrical Textiles’’ (Illuminated Press, U.S.), ‘‘We are Moulting Birds’’ (Light Factory Publication, Canada), and a co-author of "Hvor End Havet Skyller Dig Op" (Forlaget Silkerfyret, Denmark). His awards include the Africa Haiku Prize, the Library of Africa and the African Diaspora chapbook prize, the Singapore Poetry Prize, the 6th Ghana Association of Writers Literary Awards, the Samira Bawumia Literature Prize, the 1st Wanjohi Prize for African Poetry, and others. He edits poetry for The Journal of African Youth Literature. His craft can be found in The London Reader, The New Orleans Review, Fiyah Magazine, The Michigan Quarterly Review, Prairie Fire, Wales Haiku Journal, The Woodward Review and others. Mainoo was a headline poet at the Lyra Bristol Poetry Festival in England (2024) under the auspices of Bath Spa University, Ashesi University and the Arts Council of England.
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