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kith books @kithbooks.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

HAPPY The Holy Ghost Lives in Her Laugh RELEASE DAY!! In this love letter to mothers, to Black women, to the woman that raised him, @drdphelps.bsky.social gives thanks, and shows grace, for an unconditional love born of tinder and flame. kithbooks.com/shop/p/inherlaugh

The Holy Ghost Lives In Her Laugh
by Darius Phelps
cover: A greyscale painting by Herok of a slightly skewed black rectangular aperture framed out in white. Through rough brushstrokes the illusion is made of light piercing the darkness, beginning to illuminate what lies within.

The following poem is framed by the spine image (the title in all caps black on chartreuse) on the right and a strip of front cover detail at the bottom.

The Lengths She'd Go

my mother
once split the last pill
between her ribs & my tomorrow—
said, take it, baby, i’ll make do with pain.

she’s the kind of woman
who’d trade her breath
if it meant I’d sleep through the storm.

& even now,
when the world calls me broken,
she threads my name into her prayers
like it’s the only thing she’s ever believed in.

The following poem is framed by the spine image (the title in all caps black on chartreuse) on the left and a strip of front cover detail at the bottom.

god was a woman with cracked knuckles

she did not speak in thunder.
she yelled through dishwater & overdue bills,
through the sharp snap of a belt
she never wanted to use.

divinity lived in her migraines
& the way she curled into herself
when the house finally slept.

don’t talk to me about heaven—
i watched her build one every time she laid a folded towel
at the edge of my bed like an altar.

she didn’t need angels.
she had me.
& i,
a boy with no wings,
learned to fly anyway.

Dr. Darius Phelps' new collection The Holy Ghost Lives in Her Laugh is a love letter to Black women. It is all ode & reverence, all heart & wisdom. This work holds within its pages a blueprint for survival; what to do when the wilderness (was) kinder / than the dinner table and how to endure when you've inherited the ache. So many moments in this work made me tremble with recognition, from its dedication page all the way to the last line. Phelps is tender & miraculous in his insistence of love, of worship. Reminding us that the sun rises each morning stupid and golden /and forgiving but we must rise alongside it too. When he writes: I didn't always have language for the way love survives violence that is the beginning & that beginning is balm.

-Yesenia Montilla, Author of The Pink Box & Muse Found in a Colonized Body

In The Holy Ghost Lives in Her Laugh, Darius Phelps crafts a scripture of daily grace, of frosted cheerios and slow-boiling water. In these poems, a son raises himself into disciplehood, brings himself to meet the world through the hands and history of a mother: "i learned to pray/by watching her work." Phelps' second collection of poems affirms what I have long believed: that the act of writing to and toward the ones we love may indeed help us to love them better. These are poems of great attention, poems that trace the swelling of knuckles against rings. Poems that call us back from the brink. That call to us from miles away to share a few moments of night, to wait with us for the tea to cool. What a blessing to be on the other end of the line-listen closely.

-Andrew Chi Keong Yim, Author of The Ninth Island

And much like a wound dressed in pearls, Darius Phelps' tender sophomore return, The Holy Ghost That Lives In Her Laugh rendered itself as both ode and elegy. A poetry collection that, with grace, candor, and an unflinching eye towards personal history, this book stand at the intimate intersections of family, faith, and violence. Survival is a…

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kith books @kithbooks.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

“This collection understands love as labor. As spellwork. As resistance. It understands motherhood— not only biological, but communal, ancestral, chosen— as a site of divine power.“ - @drdphelps.bsky.social The Holy Ghost Lives In Her Laugh kithbooks.com/shop/p/inherlaugh

The Holy Ghost Lives In Her Laugh
by Darius Phelps

"She taught me rhythm
with a cast-iron skillet,
taught me to sing
while the smoke alarm wailed,
to find gospel
in the small rebellions—
like making my pain
out loud."

kithbooks.com

The Lengths She'd Go

my mother
once split the last pill
between her ribs & my tomorrow—
said, take it, baby, i’ll make do with pain.
she’s the kind of woman
who’d trade her breath
if it meant I’d sleep through the storm.
& even now,
when the world calls me broken,
she threads my name into her prayers
like it’s the only thing she’s ever believed in.

from The Holy Ghost Lives In Her Laugh
by Darius Phelps

kithbooks.com

052

Reposted by @drdphelps.bsky.social

kith books @kithbooks.bsky.social · 29/03/2026

new kith books are coming! @drdphelps.bsky.social @billiewrites.bsky.social @selizabeth.bsky.social @bextatic.bsky.social kithbooks.com

COMING SOON!
PREORDERS ARE OPEN

The Holy Ghost Lives In Her Laugh
by Darius Phelps
a love letter to a mother, all mothers. an ode to the strength and determination of Black women from one grateful, reverent son.

Transmasc Marvel Girl
by sterling-elizabeth arcadia
ekphrasis of movies, theatre sex, and wrestling a body you're not always happy to see

Like Blood on a Dog's Teeth
by Nivik
a tender reflection on ageing as a trans person. comprising primarily of poems to old lovers.

36 Views of My Breasts
by Wilhelmina "Billie" Sainwood
poetry and reflective essays about the author's relationship with her breasts pre- & post transition

kithbooks.com

086

Reposted by @drdphelps.bsky.social

kith books @kithbooks.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

"This collection understands love as labor. As spellwork. As resistance. It understands motherhood— not only biological, but communal, ancestral, chosen— as a site of divine power.“ The Holy Ghost Lives In Her Laugh by Darius Phelps @drdphelps.bsky.social kithbooks.com/shop/p/inherlaugh

IMAGE 3

The following poem is framed by the spine image (the title in all caps black on chartreuse) on the left and a strip of front cover detail at the bottom.

god was a woman with cracked knuckles

she did not speak in thunder.
she yelled through dishwater & overdue bills,
through the sharp snap of a belt
she never wanted to use.

divinity lived in her migraines
& the way she curled into herself
when the house finally slept.

don’t talk to me about heaven—
i watched her build one every time she laid a folded towel
at the edge of my bed like an altar.

she didn’t need angels.
she had me.
& i,
a boy with no wings,
learned to fly anyway.

033

Reposted by @drdphelps.bsky.social

kith books @kithbooks.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

if you know me, you know i have a great love (and a vested interest) in the knowing of mothers as people in context. @drdphelps.bsky.social's commitment to holding his whole cloth is what sold this book for me. none of us are perfect, but we can be known.

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