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Donika Kelly

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Donika Kelly
Bornearly 1980s
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
OccupationAcademic and poet
Notable worksThe Renunciations
Notable awardsAnisfield-Wolf Book Award, 2022
SpouseMelissa Febos
Website
donikakelly.com

Donika Kelly (born early 1980s)[1] is an American poet and academic, who is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Iowa,[2] where she teaches creative writing. She is the author of the chapbook Aviarium, published with fivehundred places in 2017, and the full-length collections Bestiary (Graywolf Press, 2016) and The Renunciations (Graywolf Press, May 2021).

Bestiary is the winner of the 2015 Cave Canem Poetry Prize,[3] the 2017 Hurston/Wright Award for poetry,[4] and the 2018 Kate Tufts Discovery Award,[4] and was longlisted for the National Book Award in 2016[5] and a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award[6] and a Publishing Triangle Award in 2017.[7]

The Renunciations was a finalist for the 2021 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry,[8] and the winner of the 2022 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for poetry.[9]

Kelly earned her MFA in Writing from the Michener Center for Writers[10] and a Ph.D. in English from Vanderbilt University.[10] She is a Cave Canem Foundation Graduate Fellow,[11] the recipient of a Lannan Residency fellowship,[12] and a fellowship to the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts.[2] Her poems have appeared in The Paris Review,[13] Foglifter,[14] and The New Yorker, among other journals and magazines,[15] and she is a contributor to the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.[16] Kelly lives in Iowa with her wife Melissa Febos.[17]

Biography

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Early years

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Kelly was born in Los Angeles, California, in the early 1980s and moved with her family to Arkansas in the late 1990s.[1]

Education

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In 2005, Kelly received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Southern Arkansas University.[18] She received a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Texas in 2008.[10] Her thesis was called The White Meat. In 2009, she obtained a Master of Arts from Vanderbilt University.[1] Her thesis, Framing the Subject in Natasha Trethewey’s Bellocq’s Ophelia, analyzed Natasha Trethewey's book on Ernest J. Bellocq's photography, specifically those of unnamed mixed-race prostitutes. Kelly finished her Ph.D in English Literature from Vanderbilt University in August 2013.[1] Her dissertation was titled Reading against Genre: Contemporary Westerns and the Problem of White Manhood. In it, Kelly explains how the way in which society perceives the role of white men is largely influenced by the way they are portrayed in media, with a particular focus on contemporary Western films.[19]

Personal life

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She lives in Iowa with her wife, the poet Melissa Febos.[20]

Awards and honors

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  • National Book Award, Longlist, 2016[1]
  • Cave Canem Poetry Prize, Winner, 2015[3]
  • Bayard Rustin Advocacy Award, Office of LGBTQI Life, Vanderbilt, 2015
  • Thomas Daniel Young Award for Excellence in Teaching, Vanderbilt, 2013
  • Cave Canem Graduate Fellow, 2009, 2011, 2013
  • Provost's Graduate Fellowship, Vanderbilt University, 2008–2013
  • University Fellowship, Vanderbilt University, 2008–2013
  • James A. Michener Fellow in Writing, 2005–2008
  • Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets, June Fellow, 2004
  • Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, 2022[21]

Bibliography

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Poetry

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Collections
  • Bestiary. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Graywolf Press. 2016. ISBN 9781555977580.
  • The renunciations. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Graywolf Press. 2021. ISBN 9781644450536.[a]
Chapbooks
  • Aviarium (500 Places, 2017)
List of poems
Title Year First published Reprinted/collected
From the catalogue of cruelty 2020 Kelly, Donika (January 6, 2020). "From the catalogue of cruelty". The New Yorker. Vol. 95, no. 43. pp. 22–23.
  • "Bedtime Story For The Bruised Heart", "Cartography As An Act of Remembering", "The Three Birds Of The Milky Way" and "Labyrinth," Sinister Wisdom, 2017
  • "The Oracle Remembers the Future Cannot Be Avoided", "Gun Control (Mama)", and "Primer: D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths", Tin House, 2017
  • "In the Chapel of St. Mary’s" and "Self-Portrait in Labyrinth", Washington Square, 2017
  • "Partial Hospitalization", Buzzfeed Reader, 2016
  • "Love Poem: Chimera", Gulf Coast, 2016
  • "Construction", "Revelation: Black Bear", "Revelation: White Bear", and "Pony", Rockhurst Review, 2016
  • "Bower Bird", "Swallow", and "How to be alone", Virginia Quarterly Review, 2016
  • "Love Poem: Centaur" and "Love Poem Mermaid", Pleiades, 2016
  • "Fourth Grade Autobiography", Nashville Review, 2016
  • "Handsome Is", "Little Box", and "Love Letter", Gris-Gris, 2016
  • "Acheron" and "Hymn", Cincinnati Review, 2015
  • "Ocelot", Eleven Eleven Journal, 2015
  • "Statistics", Rove, 2015
  • "A Man Goes West and Falls Off His Horse in the Desert" and "Self-Portrait as a Door", Tupelo Quarterly, 2013
  • "Arkansas Love Poem", The Best of Kore Press, 2013
  • "Love Poem: Griffon", West Branch, 2013
  • "Last rites", RHINO, 2013
  • "Tender" and "What Gay Porn Has Done for Me", Bloom, 2012
  • "Love Poem: Minotaur" and "Sonnet in which only one bird appears", Vinyl, 2012
  • "The Yard", "Love Song", "Whale", "Arkansas Love Song", and "Where she is opened. Where she is closed", The Feminist Wire, 2011
  • "Archaeology" and "Perhaps you tire of birds", Crazyhorse, 2011
  • "Whale", Hayden’s Ferry Review, 2011
  • "Sanctuary", "Where We End Up" and "Brood", in Margaret Busby (ed.), New Daughters of Africa, 2019.

Theses

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  • Framing the subject in Natasha Trethewey’s Bellocq’s Ophelia (MA). Vanderbilt University. 2009.
  • Reading against genre : contemporary Westerns and the problem of white manhood (PhD). Vanderbilt University. 2013.

———————

Notes
  1. ^ Briefly reviewed in the May 31, 2021 issue of The New Yorker, p.63.

Sources

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  • Kelly, Donika (2013). Reading against Genre: Contemporary Westerns and the Problem of White Manhood
  • Kelly, Donika (2009), Framing the Subject in Natasha Trethewey’s Bellocq’s Ophelia
  • Donika Kelly website

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e "A Conversation Between Nikky Finney and Donika Kelly" (Nikky Finney interviews Donika Kelly), Los Angeles Review of Books, November 14, 2016.
  2. ^ a b "An Interview with Donika Kelly – West Branch". Retrieved 2024-06-02.
  3. ^ a b "Cave Canem » Blog Archive Events for June 2024". Retrieved 2024-06-02.
  4. ^ a b Foundation, Poetry (2024-06-02). "Donika Kelly". Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 2024-06-02.
  5. ^ "Donika Kelly | Longlist, 2016 National Book Awards". National Book Foundation. Retrieved June 20, 2021.
  6. ^ "Previous Winners". Lambda Literary. Retrieved June 20, 2021.
  7. ^ "The Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry". The Publishing Triangle. Retrieved June 20, 2021.
  8. ^ Schaub, Michael (2022-02-22). "The Renunciations by Donika Kelly: 2021 Poetry Finalist". National Book Critics Circle. Retrieved 2024-06-01.
  9. ^ "Kelly wins 2022 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in poetry | Iowa Now - The University of Iowa". now.uiowa.edu. Retrieved 2024-06-01.
  10. ^ a b c "EWL Department Chooses Poet Donika Kelly's 'Bestiary' for 2019 Summer Reading". www.mmm.edu. Retrieved 2024-06-02.
  11. ^ "A Conversation Between Nikky Finney and Donika Kelly". Los Angeles Review of Books. 2016-11-14. Retrieved 2024-06-03.
  12. ^ "Donika Kelly". Lannan Foundation. Retrieved 2024-06-02.
  13. ^ "Donika Kelly". The Paris Review (227). Winter 2018. Retrieved June 20, 2021.
  14. ^ Kelly, Donika (September 3, 2020). "Dear—". Foglifter. Two: 136.
  15. ^ "Donika Kelly | English | College of Liberal Arts and Sciences | The University of Iowa". english.uiowa.edu. Retrieved January 18, 2021.
  16. ^ Burke, Paul (March 28, 2019). "New Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Writing by Women of African Descent edited by Margaret Busby". NB. Archived from the original on September 22, 2020. Retrieved June 20, 2021.
  17. ^ "Iowa English Professor Donika Kelly receives National Endowment for the Arts fellowship | College of Liberal Arts and Sciences | The University of Iowa". College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. 2023-01-10. Retrieved 2024-06-02.
  18. ^ "Dr. Donika Kelly wins $10,000 prize for poetry collection". Magnolia Reporter - Magnolia, Arkansas News. 2018-02-21. Retrieved 2024-06-02.
  19. ^ "Reading | Donika Kelly", Bnnington College, November 2, 2016.
  20. ^ "Rebel girls". Salon. 2012-04-10. Retrieved 2020-12-22.
  21. ^ Jefferson, Tara (April 5, 2022). "Introducing Our Class of 2022". Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards. Retrieved April 6, 2022.
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