The elders have been weighed and found wanting.I have seen how full they become; their plates,their elaborate use of fingers to press holes into tenderloins.But no small hunger can constitute the eating of naked birds.dead wings on plates like butter on ceiling.I have tasted this meal; a secret that tried to remain a secret. Is this the art of tasting?A meal with elders of collapsed angels.
Hallelujah Boys
Brian Gyamfi
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Copyright © 2025 by Brian Gyamfi
Originally published in Nenta Literary Journal
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Brian Gyamfi is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, the Zell Fellowship, and two Hopwood Awards. His libretto The Ants Are Illuminated was commissioned by Overtone Industries for their Original Vision opera. A finalist for the Oxford Poetry Prize and the Poetry International Prize, his writing has appeared in POETRY, Narrative, Guernica, The Adroit Journal, and elsewhere. He serves as a contributing editor at Oxford Poetry. Gyamfi lives in Washington, DC.
Welcome to Nenta Literary Journal. We are dedicated to publishing Ghanaian writers everywhere. We want to be that champion for Ghanaian Literature.
Our name comes from two ADINKRA symbols— Nkonsonkonson and Ese Ne Tekrema (NENT) which speaks to the idea of community and interdependence
The A represents "Aba" which is the Akan word for seed.
What we are trying to say is we would like to be that seed for community in Ghanaian Literature. As much as we are a seed, we would like to be a champion for Ghanaian Literature.
We are a volunteer-run journal and each member of the team does this because they believe in NENTA.
NENTA publishes 1-5 work(s) of poetry, fiction and/or nonfiction by Ghanaian writers monthly.
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