Donika Kelly
Visiting Poet
The New York Times Book Review describes Donika Kelly’s debut, Bestiary (Graywolf Press, 2016), as “glassy, sculpted surfaces beneath which thoroughly black water churns…a testament to poetry’s ability to capture and refine emotion.” Bestiary went on to win countless literary awards, and Kelly’s success has continued with each subsequent publication. Her fearless and subversive writing style has grown increasingly compelling with publications such as Aviarium (fivehundred places, 2017) and The Renunciations (Graywolf Press, 2021).
Kelly most recently published a collection entitled The Natural Order of Things (Graywolf Press, 2025), whose poems, according to The Headlight Review, “like the emerald cicada that adorns the cover, buried for years in the earth… emerge with a deep desire to sing. And sing they do, of family, of trauma, of the hearsay of history, and of the weight of white supremacy and American empire.” Kelly sensitively distills these vast, fraught topics into verse, creating complex time capsules containing the chaotic essence of 21st century politics and public life, carefully centering Black life, queer love, and our interconnectedness with beings of the natural world.
Kelly is currently an assistant professor of English at the University of Iowa, and lives in Iowa City with her wife, fellow guest author Melissa Febos.
Kelly and Febos’s reading will be followed by conversation with Cai Sherley ’19 in John M. Greene Hall on Tuesday, September 22 at 7 p.m. Free and open to the public. Livestream also available on the BDPC YouTube page.