At age fifteen, Barbara Fant tragically lost her mother, and her world was suddenly upended. “I became an angry teenager. I was mad at the world.,” she recalls. “I even stopped praying, but I began to write. Poetry became my way of communication, my way of processing . . . it became my way to pray.” Rebirth, renewal, and healing are the heart of Joy in the Belly of a Riot. Fant’s monumental collection is a continuation of her lifelong project of using poetry as prayer;this is healing-informed poetry to restore herself, her community, and the world. Exquisitely lyrical and boldly resonant, Fant’s poems excavate the nightmares of a childhood marked by poverty, violence, racism, and the loss of countless loved ones. Suffering seemed endemic to neighborhoods like hers, and yet, in Fant’s own words, “I keep trying to write about the trauma, but the joy won’t let me.” Steeped in a rich Black Christian tradition and drawing on Scripture for artistic inspiration, Fant’s verse offers solace and