Duplan's poetry publications include the book Take This Stallion, published in 2016 by Brooklyn Arts Press, which Publishers Weekly wrote in a review "tactfully manages to stir the comical and casual into poems about pain, crippling emotional uncertainty, substance abuse, and death,"[14] and I NEED MUSIC, published in 2021 by Action Books.[3][15] The latter received praise from poets Jericho Brown, Major Jackson, and Shane McCrae,[16] as well as positive reviews from Literary Hub[17] and Make.[18] In 2016 his poem My Heart Like a Needle Ever True Turns to the Maid of Ebon Hue caught the attention of PBS, because of its focus on Civil War spy Mary Bowser.[19] In June 2021, Duplan was the guest editor for the Academy of American Poets's Poem-a-Day series.[20][21]
Duplan's 2017 chapbook, Mount Carmel & the Blood of Parnassus was inspired by his parents and how they have affected his work.[22]
Duplan's first nonfiction book, Blackspace: On the Poetics of an Afrofuture, was published by Black Ocean Press in 2020 after excerpts were published in Ploughshares[23] and Hyperallergic.[24] The nonfiction book discusses the meanings of transition and passing in regard to gender, including the irreversible effects of testosterone therapy.[23]Claudia Rankine listed it as a book she looked forward to reading in an interview with The New York Times,[25]Hanif Abdurraqib called it "futuristic work,"[26] and a review in Colorado Review noted that its style is "as much theoretical as it is journalistic as it is in the style of manifesto."[27] One In 2022, Duplan received a Whiting Award for nonfiction,[10] which NPR noted was a predictor of writers who would go on to become "household names".[6] Duplan's outfit at the award reception caught the attention of Vanity Fair which described it as a "spectacular jumpsuit".[4]
In 2016, Duplan founded the Center for Afrofuturist Studies, an artist residency program[9][28] developed to give artists of color arts space after a fundraiser on Kickstarter.[29] The first artists-in-residence while Duplan served as director were Yulan Grant, Terrence Nance, Krista Franklin.[29] In 2021, the center started new collaborations with Iowa City, including murals, interviews, and performances.[30] While at Iowa, Duplan met Tracie Morris, when they "both presented talks at Columbia University's More Than A Manifesto conference", and she later interviewed him about black sociality, academia, and influences for The Los Angeles Review of Books.[13] Duplan was also interviewed for the New York City Trans Oral History Project, in conjunction with New York Public Library's oral history project.[11] He has been teaching at Bennington College, his alma mater, since 2021.
Since 2022 Duplan had been working as a guest curator at the Museum Folkwang in Essen, Germany. He was responsible for the development of the exhibition chapter on "Afrofuturism" as part of the exhibition "We is Future - Visions of New Communities". The museum terminated the contract around a week before the opening on 24 November 2023 because of his Pro-Palestine posts. The museum justified the move by saying that Duplan had published several anti-Semitic posts on his Instagram account in the preceding weeks. The museum spokesperson cites Duplan's November 10 post calling for support for the BDS[31] movement, as what made them make that decision.[32]
List of Works
Books
Take This Stallion (Brooklyn Art Press, 2016)
Blackspace: On the Poetics of an Afrofuture (Black Ocean, 2020)
I NEED MUSIC (Action Books, 2021)
Chapbooks
Mount Carmel and the Blood of Parnassus (Monster House Press, 2017)[33]
