Ralph Jenkins
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ralpheeboi.bsky.social
Ralph Jenkins
@ralpheeboi.bsky.social
250 followers 200 following 250 posts
2022 Periplus Collective Fellow / sleep deprived fenty skin enthusiast / poet A.K.A emotional mess / WORKS LINKED⬇️

https://linktr.ee/RALPHEEBOI
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ralpheeboi.bsky.social
Interior design is done. Proofs have been submitted. We are about five months away from my book baby being in the world! I’m excited to share this with you all.
October 13, 2025 at 1:49 PM
ralpheeboi.bsky.social
Just turned in the FINAL edits for my book and now I’m gonna go have a good cry lol

we are about six months away from my book being in the world!
September 1, 2025 at 7:11 PM
ralpheeboi.bsky.social
Received my contributor copies of this year’s Best American Poetry anthology & I’m hype af!!

All these amazing ass writers & lil ole me somehow in the mix. 🤣

Shoutouts to The Indiana Review for first putting this poem into the world.
Picture of my two contributor copies of The Best American Poetry 2025 Picture of the back cover featuring all of the names of the contributors to Best American Poetry 2025 First page of my poem printed in the book Second page of my poem printed in the book
August 23, 2025 at 7:23 PM
ralpheeboi.bsky.social
🚨🚨🚨Ricky Rozay raps, “put Molly all in her champagne, she don’t even know it”, my poem which was originally published @cincinnatireview.bsky.social is the featured poem for today @versedaily.bsky.social !!
Screenshot of a poem on the Verse Daily website
July 27, 2025 at 4:22 PM
ralpheeboi.bsky.social
🚨🚨🚨PUBLICATION NEWS!!!🚨🚨🚨

Transcendent American poet @poetpatriciasmith.bsky.social selected my debut full-length poetry collection🔫 PAPER PISTOL 🔫 as a finalist for the Miller Williams Poetry Prize.

It will be released early 2026 by @uarkpress.bsky.social

I am excited af!!!
July 21, 2025 at 7:29 PM
ralpheeboi.bsky.social
Having work situated alongside the work of Billy Collins, @josehernandezdz.bsky.social & @mosababutoha.bsky.social feels surreal!!

Check out the cover for the new Best American poetry anthology!!

So grateful to be part of this.
July 17, 2025 at 8:37 PM
ralpheeboi.bsky.social
Given the date, I feel led to share some love.
So here’s my poem Love Poem no. 13, published last summer in @coloradoreview.bsky.social
July 4, 2025 at 4:48 PM
ralpheeboi.bsky.social
This is the type of shit my poems are on right now & think I’m okay with it. 😂
Cropped screenshot of poem title which reads “Poem with a hopeless ending”. I cropped the photo so no one would judge me for how low my phone battery is, & because no one on the internet needs to see one of my first drafts.
June 15, 2025 at 11:14 PM
ralpheeboi.bsky.social
The goat
February 6, 2025 at 11:13 PM
ralpheeboi.bsky.social
I’m hella excited to (finally) be able to announce that my poem
“Two men too man to mourn”
has been selected for inclusion in the Best American Poetry 2025 anthology!!

I’ve been smiling for weeks.
February 4, 2025 at 9:07 PM
ralpheeboi.bsky.social
Taylor said we dropping drafts today, so here we go. Here’s a sonnet inspired by the (long, long) road to the election & our nation’s habitually short memory.
A screenshot of a poem draft titled “they really almost had me. The poem is unpunctuated and reads as such: She didn’t just fall out of a coconut tree though her ads would have you believe something new is brewing she too exists within the context of all that came before the shock & awe the upheavals & oustings the mother of all bombs & all her babies the babies blown to bits the bits of shrapnel in a refugee’s eye I swear the orange alternative being so bad I almost thought it was 08 when press & curl took the reigns almost got fishhooked into smiling till the good homie say we mustn’t forget the point of the role the work of the job the aim of the sights: most lethal fighting force in the world a healthcare system that kills us slower qualified immunity gentrified communities yes this tea is cold i know the news is old the song long & bloody & on repeat but sometimes I need to be reminded how they do & don’t who they will & won’t let pursue happiness I can’t believe I almost got caught up in the glee again became again what I was then gullible & giddy & rapping like Jeezy revving my hooptie’s engine like a Lamborghini its sad really all it takes is a lesser devil to make us sigh with relief
January 7, 2025 at 11:16 PM
ralpheeboi.bsky.social
One of my favorite Alan Chazaro poems.
December 17, 2024 at 7:52 AM
ralpheeboi.bsky.social
This poem just rocked my socks.

“For them the word home must be home enough. // My nation rests its feet on little graves…”😮‍💨

The Yale review always publishes the best shit.
December 8, 2024 at 8:31 PM
ralpheeboi.bsky.social
Let try it out. I’d love some engagement lol
“Get to know my writing. For every like, I will post one piece I wrote.”
November 23, 2024 at 2:05 AM
ralpheeboi.bsky.social
I love this poem so much, it’s always in my head. Shoutouts to the Indiana Review for making space for my poem about grief & foolish masculinity

Give it a repost if you dig it!
Picture of a poem titled “Two men too man to mourn” which reads as follows, “All the books say when your best friend’s mama die, you ain’t got no parents neither.” — Camonghne Felix We are in Detroit, seven years ago, hiding in my whip, two grown ass men, full on ugly crying—all snotty. We left da homie’s momma’s funeral halfway into her eulogy, hearts too soft to be seen, despite the bruisings’ cause laying in a gold casket, in a sanctuary filled with more bruised hearts. Bruh had a square to share. We inhale prickly exhaust hoping for calmer nerves that never come, thank God every hood-church stands around 200 feet from a liquor store. We don’t break a sweat click-clacking across the street in our wingtips to fetch some leaves to roll gas, & our bottles of expected masculinity. We had no jokes to trade for laughs, so we got slapped to keep from weeping as we circled the block. Swerving back into the church parking lot for the repast, we do not speak. Sloshing & swallowing the only sounds as we swap swigs of brown smolder between puffs of flower. This is how we man up. This is how we show love to our dearly departed, by taking into ourselves that which would have brought shame in their living. We make libation liberation to escape what calls us to mourn in the most human ways: a salt-wet face, gushing like a ruptured dam, no longer able to hold back the flood of sobs & spit. With all the griefs sure to come, our livers won’t survive this manhood long, but it’s the only house we have blueprints for. Full of whiskey’s holy ghost, we walk back into the church, right feet slowly turning into left ones. No elder questions our wobbling or sour-mash sweat. One auntie, mascara mudsliding down her cheeks, just nods knowingly, & then points us to the buffet. We make our plates, eat the yardbird, sop the gravy & try our best to forget how to cry.
November 22, 2024 at 1:06 AM
ralpheeboi.bsky.social
Despite the exodus, the good folks over at Wildness mag are still championing their contributors on twitter.

Check out my poem “Abandoned House” on their site if you’re feeling froggy!

readwildness.com/35/jenkins-h...
Screenshot of a tweet that features a line from my poem “Abandoned House” published recently in Wildness Magazine. The photo reads “I recall a night when the cries were sharp enough to slice through even practiced sleep” Taken from issue number 35 of Wildness
November 21, 2024 at 5:20 PM