Donika Kelly

Donika Kelly
Kelly at the 2025 Texas Book Festival
Bornearly 1980s
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
EducationSouthern Arkansas University (BA)
University of Texas at Austin (MFA)
Vanderbilt University (MA, PhD)
OccupationsAcademic and poet
SpouseMelissa Febos
Writing career
Notable worksThe Renunciations
Bestiary
Notable awards Hurston/Wright Legacy Award (2017)
Anisfield-Wolf Book Award (2022)
NEA Fellowship (2023)
Websitedonikakelly.com

Donika Kelly is an American poet and academic. She is the author of the chapbook Aviarium (2017) and three full-length poetry collections Bestiary (2016), The Renunciations (2021), and The Natural Order of Things (2025).

Early life and education

Kelly was born in Los Angeles, California in the early 1980s and moved with her family to Arkansas in the late 1990s. Her family still lives there.

In 2005, Kelly received her Bachelor of Arts in English from Southern Arkansas University. She received a Master of Fine Arts from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin in 2008. Her thesis was called The White Meat.

In 2009, she obtained a Master of Arts from Vanderbilt University. 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, where she specialized in American literature and film studies. 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.

Career

Her poems have been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Foglifter, The Paris Review, Gulf Coast, Indiana Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. She is a contributor to the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.

Bestiary is the winner of the 2015 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, the 2017 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Poetry, and the 2018 Kate Tufts Discovery Award. It was longlisted for the National Book Award in 2016. It was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and a Publishing Triangle Award in 2017.

The Renunciations won the 2022 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Poetry. It was a finalist for the 2021 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry.

Kelly is a Cave Canem Foundation Graduate Fellow. She is the recipient of a Lannan Residency fellowship and a fellowship to the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. She received a 2023 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry, and won the 2025 Pushcart Prize.

Kelly is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Iowa, where she teaches creative writing. She has previously taught at the City University of New York's Baruch College and St. Bonaventure University.

Personal life

She lives in Iowa with her wife, the writer Melissa Febos.

Awards and honors

Bibliography

Poetry

Collections
Chapbooks
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.

Theses

———————

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

Sources

References

  1. 1 2 3 "A Conversation Between Nikky Finney and Donika Kelly" (Nikky Finney interviews Donika Kelly), Los Angeles Review of Books, November 14, 2016.
  2. ↑ "Dr. Donika Kelly wins $10,000 prize for poetry collection". Magnolia Reporter - Magnolia, Arkansas News. February 21, 2018. Retrieved June 2, 2024.
  3. 1 2 3 "EWL Department Chooses Poet Donika Kelly's 'Bestiary' for 2019 Summer Reading". www.mmm.edu. Retrieved June 2, 2024.
  4. ↑ "Reading | Donika Kelly", Bennington College, November 2, 2016.
  5. 1 2 Luborsky, Alexa. "Interview// "On the Boundaries of the Self and the Saying of the Unknown": A Conversation with Donika Kelly". poetrynw.org. Retrieved 2026-05-29.
  6. ↑ "Donika Kelly, English, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, The University of Iowa". english.uiowa.edu. Retrieved January 18, 2021.
  7. ↑ "Donika Kelly". The Paris Review (227). Winter 2018. Retrieved June 20, 2021.
  8. ↑ Kelly, Donika (September 3, 2020). "Dear—". Foglifter. Two: 136.
  9. 1 2 "University of Arizona Poetry Center, Donika Kelly". poetry.arizona.edu. Retrieved 2026-05-29.
  10. ↑ 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.
  11. 1 2 "Cave Canem » Blog Archive Events for June 2024". Retrieved June 2, 2024.
  12. ↑ Foundation, Poetry (June 2, 2024). "Donika Kelly". Poetry Foundation. Retrieved June 2, 2024.
  13. ↑ "Donika Kelly | Longlist, 2016 National Book Awards". National Book Foundation. Retrieved June 20, 2021.
  14. ↑ "Previous Winners". Lambda Literary. Retrieved June 20, 2021.
  15. ↑ "The Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry". The Publishing Triangle. Retrieved June 20, 2021.
  16. ↑ "Kelly wins 2022 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in poetry | Iowa Now - The University of Iowa". now.uiowa.edu. April 20, 2022. Retrieved June 1, 2024.
  17. ↑ Schaub, Michael (February 22, 2022). "The Renunciations by Donika Kelly: 2021 Poetry Finalist". National Book Critics Circle. Retrieved June 1, 2024.
  18. ↑ "Poets at the End of the World: A Reading at Cave Canem". poets.org. Retrieved 2026-05-29.
  19. ↑ "Donika Kelly". Lannan Foundation. Retrieved June 2, 2024.
  20. 1 2 "An Interview with Donika Kelly – West Branch". Retrieved June 2, 2024.
  21. ↑ "Donika Kelly, National Endowment for the Arts 2023, Poetry". arts.gov. Retrieved 2026-05-29.
  22. ↑ "The Writers Studio Celebrates the 2025 Pushcart Prize". writerstudio.com. Retrieved 2026-05-29.
  23. ↑ "CLAS honors faculty with 2024 teaching and engagement awards". University of Iowa. Retrieved 2026-05-29.
  24. ↑ "This poet releases the beasts to discover her humanity". pbs.gov. Retrieved 2026-05-29.
  25. ↑ Febos, Melissa (April 10, 2012). "Rebel girls". Salon. Retrieved December 22, 2020.
  26. ↑ "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. January 10, 2023. Retrieved June 2, 2024.
  27. ↑ Jefferson, Tara (April 5, 2022). "Introducing Our Class of 2022". Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards. Retrieved April 6, 2022.
  28. ↑ "What Black Thing Have I Seen at a Museum?". Los Angeles Review of Books. October 26, 2025. Retrieved December 16, 2025.