Skip to Content

Ghosts of Abolition

By Carlos Andrés Gómez

whisper through tear gas—
remind of the original
patrols, ruddy-cheeked
marshals who stalked
each plantation fringe—
say: “Abolish.” A flank
of fragile men in body armor
fire into the crowd.
Raised hands, unyielding:
“Until abolition.”

 

Listen as Carlos Andrés Gómez reads "Ghosts of Abolition."
Added: Wednesday, February 3, 2021  /  Used with permission. The writing of this poem was made possible by a micro-commissioning grant from the Bradford Literature Festival.
Carlos Andrés Gómez
Photo by Friends & Lovers Photography

Carlos Andrés Gómez is a Colombian American poet from New York City. His debut full-length poetry collection Fractures was selected by former U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey as the winner of the 2020 Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry. Carlos collaborated with John Legend on Senior Orientation, a program to counteract bullying and champion inclusive masculinity among high school students.

Winner of the Foreword INDIES Gold Medal in Poetry and the International Book Award for Poetry, Gómez has been published in New England Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Yale Review, BuzzFeed Reader, CHORUS: A Literary Mixtape (Simon & Schuster, 2012), and elsewhere. Carlos is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. For more, please visit the poet's website.

Other poems by this author

Back to top