What God in the Kingdom of Bastards: Poems

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.

Brian Gyamfi is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, the Zell Fellowship at the University of Michigan, two Hopwood Awards, the Helen S. and John Wagner Prize, and the Michael R. Gutterman Award. He has been a finalist for the Poetry International Prize, the Oxford Poetry Prize, the Hopwood Drama Award, and the National Poetry Series. Gyamfi graduated summa cum laude with honors from the University of Texas, earning his BA, and later received his MFA from the University of Michigan, where he was a merit scholar. His libretto The Ants Are Illuminated was commissioned by Overtone Industry for their Original Vision opera. His work has appeared in POETRY, Narrative Magazine, The Adroit Journal, Poetry International, Guernica, and other publications. He serves as a contributing editor at Oxford Poetry.