“I was like, ‘I wrote this book, I think it’s good, I know my friends will read it, and maybe that’ll be it.’ So, all of this has just been really, really surprising, and it’s not even like a false kind of humbleness. “I kind of expected that no one would read the book,” she laughed, continuing. “But as we know, making a good piece of art, making a strong piece of art, doing good work doesn’t always result in recognition.” I just didn’t expect that I would be on the radar in any way.īestiary was the recipient of the 2015 Cave Canem Poetry Prize and was longlisted for the 2016 National Book Award for Poetry, by the way. I wouldn’t have sent it out if I did not think it’s a strong piece of art,” she states. I want to preface everything that I’m about to say with that. She read it for the first time along with everyone else, however. How it moves might be surprising, but that surprise is in a moment, and then you can dip out.”ĭonika knew the New York Times review was coming. “Poetry gives me some space to be in something for a few minutes we can just be in this for two minutes and then we’re out. I’m going to do it regardless of whether or not I’m being an academic or being a scholar.’” “It wasn’t until after I graduated from my MFA program that I really felt like, ‘Okay, I’m a poet.’ I was in a PhD program and I was still writing lots of poems and I was like, ‘Oh, right, this is the thing that I actually love to do, this is the thing that I enjoy doing. I had four readings in college – solo readings - faculty came, friends came.” Hastily she adds with a smirk, “There was nothing to do. “I’m not an extrovert, but I do like performing I like the energy. One of her professors taught Donika how to read her own work. It wasn’t until late in the first semester of her senior year of high school that poetry revisited Donika. That poem upset her, so I tore it up and threw it away.”ĭonika is candid. And I was being sexually abused by my father, but my mom didn’t know. “It sounded to her like something that one of her first cousins might have written about being sexually abused by her father. But I showed it to my mom and it upset her,” Donika said. “When I was in middle school I had written a poem. They tried to instigate themselves early on but they were denied, put in storage. The path to her words wasn’t an apparent one growing up, though. Oh, and her first poetry collection, the award-winning Bestiary, was reviewed by the New York Times last month, to acclaim. Not to mention the instructional and professorial career since 2005. The “Fellowships & Honors” and “Poetry Publications” sections of Donika’s CV are enough to make even the ‘busiest’ of us feel just a wee bit guilty for that day/week/month we spent embroiled in that Law & Order marathon. It’s a boon for us and the region’s literary community that Donika landed squarely in Western New York last year, however. I was excited and also kind of unsure – this is a really different place from the other places I’ve lived,” said the 33-year-old poet and professor. Bonaventure University, and they were very excited about the possibility of me joining the faculty. A dip back into California for a year (faculty, Santa Clara University University of California, Davis), and now…Olean, New York. Then it was off to Texas for three years (MFA, University of Texas at Austin), then Nashville for seven (MA, PhD, Vanderbilt University). She then moved to Arkansas where she attended high school and college (BA, Arkansas University). Donika Kelly was born in Los Angeles and lived there until she was 13.
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