Overview

A California Review of Books Best Poetry Book of 2025 What God in the Kingdom of Bastards is a poetic exploration of grief, memory, Blackness, and the haunting legacy of familial trauma by way of colonialism, told through the lens of two brothers: Lot, the elder, who is flesh and alive, and Frank, the younger, a ghost navigating his post-suicide existence. Their relationship anchors the collection, weaving themes of love, loss, and the arduous reconciliation between the living and the dead. Combining vivid imagery with fragmented, conversational tones of prayers, laments, and whispered confessions that are surreal and lyrical, Gyamfi delves into the ways trauma—both personal and systemic—permeates family, faith, and identity.

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9780822967576

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Reviews

Often sounding prophetic, speaking in cryptic riddles about existence, Brian Gyamfi is something of a preacher, his book akin to a sermon.-- ""Lake Poetry"" A multifaceted, multilayered debut to put at the top of your reading list.-- ""Washington Independent Review of Books"" Diving into Gyamfi's poem proves he has an eye for rich and evocative imagery on top of emotional language. He expertly blends a personal lens with the larger cultural roots that built him as a writer.-- ""Debutiful"" It is a rare poem where that first-book urgency is met with an equally urgent attention to craft. One is reminded of, say, a young Frank Bidart. It is no hyperbole when I call Kingdom precocious, when I assure you Brian Gyamfi is an emerging, necessary voice whose name you will hear again in years to come. This debut is more than accomplished--it is masterful.-- ""Michigan Quarterly Review"" The tangled roots of reality and dream grow wilder and wilder in Brian Gyamfi's stunning debut collection. The unabashed vibrance of this new voice reveals layers and seams of diasporic witness, courageous communal testimony, and spiritual incitement in the midst of the 'storm without rain.' Fervor and tenderness intertwine in these powerful, bodily poems. I'm moved by the candor coursing the heart of this book, but I'm spellbound by the unblinking eyes of this roving, unruly imagination.--Aaron Coleman, author of Red Wilderness 'I was made in Kumasi, Ghana, ' writes the poet. And indeed, Ghana is a durable touchstone in the metamorphic landscapes of these remarkable poems, where we are as likely to encounter a snowstorm in Manhattan or a garden in New Mexico as a barbershop in Accra, where a Pentecostal baptism and the memory of a childhood beating can structure generations of familial narrative. Gyamfi is a poet of rare mythic abundance; his imagination seems to have no limits.--Linda Gregerson, author of Canopy These are poems possessed by influence--the shades of elders, both familial and literary, the spirits of language and history and home--but from these ghostly voices, Gyamfi has forged an oracular style all his own: searching, restless, and utterly radiant. What God in the Kingdom of Bastards is a stunning, searing debut.--Peter Ho Davies, author of A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself Brian Gyamfi writes with change-seeking faith. The poems in What God in the Kingdom of Bastards seize upon awe's ancient ability to alter the spirit, so we might wonder and know and reckon anew.--Geffrey Davis, author of One Wild Word Away The imaginative force behind Brian Gyamfi's What God in the Kingdom of Bastards is raw and electric, fusing myth, memory, theology, and sexuality with fearless originality. Gyamfi reshapes biblical and diasporic mythologies with irreverent reverence--sacred cosmology meets visceral absurdity. Here, faith becomes dance, disruption, and wound; theory becomes flesh. Grief, masculinity, and mental illness unfold through intimate, bodily metaphors: 'Jesus at McDonalds, ' boys baptized in creeks, the smell of oranges in a casket. This is a breathtaking debut, a dizzily exhilarating and boundary-breaking poetics--at once grounded in dirt and soaring into the dream depths of mythology.--Khaled Mattawa, author of Fugitive Atlas

The tangled roots of reality and dream grow wilder and wilder in Brian Gyamfi's stunning debut collection. The unabashed vibrance of this new voice reveals layers and seams of diasporic witness, courageous communal testimony, and spiritual incitement in the midst of the 'storm without rain.' Fervor and tenderness intertwine in these powerful, bodily poems. I'm moved by the candor coursing the heart of this book, but I'm spellbound by the unblinking eyes of this roving, unruly imagination.--Aaron Coleman, author of Red Wilderness 'I was made in Kumasi, Ghana, ' writes the poet. And indeed, Ghana is a durable touchstone in the metamorphic landscapes of these remarkable poems, where we are as likely to encounter a snowstorm in Manhattan or a garden in New Mexico as a barbershop in Accra, where a Pentecostal baptism and the memory of a childhood beating can structure generations of familial narrative. Gyamfi is a poet of rare mythic abundance; his imagination seems to have no limits.--Linda Gregerson, author of Canopy Brian Gyamfi writes with change-seeking faith. The poems in What God in the Kingdom of Bastards seize upon awe's ancient ability to alter the spirit, so we might wonder and know and reckon anew.--Geffrey Davis, author of One Wild Word Away The imaginative force behind Brian Gyamfi's What God in the Kingdom of Bastards is raw and electric, fusing myth, memory, theology, and sexuality with fearless originality. Gyamfi reshapes biblical and diasporic mythologies with irreverent reverence--sacred cosmology meets visceral absurdity. Here, faith becomes dance, disruption, and wound; theory becomes flesh. Grief, masculinity, and mental illness unfold through intimate, bodily metaphors: 'Jesus at McDonalds, ' boys baptized in creeks, the smell of oranges in a casket. This is a breathtaking debut, a dizzily exhilarating and boundary-breaking poetics--at once grounded in dirt and soaring into the dream depths of mythology.--Khaled Mattawa, author of Fugitive Atlas These are poems possessed by influence--the shades of elders, both familial and literary, the spirits of language and history and home--but from these ghostly voices, Gyamfi has forged an oracular style all his own: searching, restless, and utterly radiant. What God in the Kingdom of Bastards is a stunning, searing debut.--Peter Ho Davies, author A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself

I was made in Kumasi, Ghana,"" writes the poet. And indeed, Ghana is a durable touchstone in the metamorphic landscapes of these remarkable poems, where we are as likely to encounter a snowstorm in Manhattan or a garden in New Mexico as a barbershop in Accra, where a Pentecostal baptism and the memory of a childhood beating can structure generations of familial narrative. Gyamfi is a poet of rare mythic abundance; his imagination seems to have no limits.--Linda Gregerson, author of Canopy These are poems possessed by influence - the shades of elders, both familial and literary, the spirits of language and history and home - but from these ghostly voices, Gyamfi has forged an oracular style all his own: searching, restless, and utterly radiant. What God in the Kingdom of Bastards is a stunning, searing debut.--Peter Ho Davies, author A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself

'I was made in Kumasi, Ghana, ' writes the poet. And indeed, Ghana is a durable touchstone in the metamorphic landscapes of these remarkable poems, where we are as likely to encounter a snowstorm in Manhattan or a garden in New Mexico as a barbershop in Accra, where a Pentecostal baptism and the memory of a childhood beating can structure generations of familial narrative. Gyamfi is a poet of rare mythic abundance; his imagination seems to have no limits.--Linda Gregerson, author of Canopy The imaginative force behind Brian Gyamfi's What God in the Kingdom of Bastards is raw and electric, fusing myth, memory, theology, and sexuality with fearless originality. Gyamfi reshapes biblical and diasporic mythologies with irreverent reverence--sacred cosmology meets visceral absurdity. Here, faith becomes dance, disruption, and wound; theory becomes flesh. Grief, masculinity, and mental illness unfold through intimate, bodily metaphors: 'Jesus at McDonalds, ' boys baptized in creeks, the smell of oranges in a casket. This is a breathtaking debut, a dizzily exhilarating and boundary-breaking poetics--at once grounded in dirt and soaring into the dream depths of mythology.--Khaled Mattawa, author of Fugitive Atlas These are poems possessed by influence--the shades of elders, both familial and literary, the spirits of language and history and home--but from these ghostly voices, Gyamfi has forged an oracular style all his own: searching, restless, and utterly radiant. What God in the Kingdom of Bastards is a stunning, searing debut.--Peter Ho Davies, author A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself

Author Information

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.

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