Donika Kelly
@donikakelly.bsky.social
560 followers 76 following 7 posts
Author of Bestiary and The Renunciations and The Natural Order of Things | Graywolf Press | Kate Tufts | Hurston/Wright | Anisfield-Wolf |NEA | Iowa English | she/her/dr.
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donikakelly.bsky.social
My new book THE NATURAL ORDER OF THINGS comes out October 7 and is available for pre-order! If you order from @prairielights.com I'll sign your copy! www.prairielightsbooks.com/book/9781644...
@graywolfpress.bsky.social
The cover of donika kelly's poetry collection The Natural Order of Things. Open and translucent cicada wings on the left side of a white background with the title and author name toward the right.
Reposted by Donika Kelly
hanvanderhart.bsky.social
The moon drops one or two feathers into the
field.
The dark wheat listens.
Be still.
Now.

James Wright
POETRY FOUNDATION
Beginning

BY JAMES WRIGHT

The moon drops one or two feathers into the
field.
The dark wheat listens.
Be still.
Now.
There they are, the moon's young, trying Their wings.
Between trees, a slender woman lifts up the lovely
shadow
Of her face, and now she steps into the air, now she
is gone
Wholly, into the air.
I stand alone by an elder tree, I do not dare breathe
Or move.
I listen.
The wheat leans back toward its own darkness, And I lean toward mine.
Reposted by Donika Kelly
bombmag.bsky.social
From BOMB’s Fall 2025 Issue, @donikakelly.bsky.social’s poems from THE NATURAL ORDER OF THINGS (graywolfpress.bsky.social) evoke a visceral sense of the intimate. Read an excerpt.

tinyurl.com/2c8kpjew
Reposted by Donika Kelly
prairielights.com
Join us tonight at 7 pm for a reading at the Iowa City Public Library with Donika Kelly!
Reposted by Donika Kelly
torchliteraryarts.bsky.social
Congratulations to Torch Features Patricia Smith and Tiana Clark, and all of the finalists longlisted for the National Book Award in Poetry!

See Tiana Clark and Donika Kelly at the Torch events at the Texas Book Festival in November!

Details at TorchLiteraryArts.org
Reposted by Donika Kelly
Reposted by Donika Kelly
iowacityoflit.bsky.social
We can't wait to host Donika Kelly as she launches her wonderful new collection, "The Natural Order of Things"!
donikakelly.bsky.social
Book stuff kicks off next week, with a home book launch in Iowa City as part of the @iowacityoflit.bsky.social Book Festival. Tuesday 10/7 at 7pm at the Iowa City Public Library!
Tour graphic with dates for my book tour: 
10/7: Prairie Lights w ICBF
10/10: Storypub Book Store in Des Moines 
1023: Brown  University 
10/25: Wisconsin Book Festival
10/27: Skylights Books with Jennifer Espinoza

Tour graphic continues: 
10/31: Palm Springs Pride on the Page
11/8-9: Texas Book Fest
11/13: NYU 
11/14: Craft Talk at NYU
11/14: Sarah Lawrence 
11/15: P&T Knitwear
donikakelly.bsky.social
Book stuff kicks off next week, with a home book launch in Iowa City as part of the @iowacityoflit.bsky.social Book Festival. Tuesday 10/7 at 7pm at the Iowa City Public Library!
Tour graphic with dates for my book tour: 
10/7: Prairie Lights w ICBF
10/10: Storypub Book Store in Des Moines 
1023: Brown  University 
10/25: Wisconsin Book Festival
10/27: Skylights Books with Jennifer Espinoza

Tour graphic continues: 
10/31: Palm Springs Pride on the Page
11/8-9: Texas Book Fest
11/13: NYU 
11/14: Craft Talk at NYU
11/14: Sarah Lawrence 
11/15: P&T Knitwear
Reposted by Donika Kelly
isaacgantwerkmayer.bsky.social
if you want to hear it with the original audio instaed of the music, I downloaded this from the EcoWatch Discovery Mauritius Instagram page directly. if you want to share it please credit them
Reposted by Donika Kelly
rebeccarhelm.bsky.social
I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA

10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)
donikakelly.bsky.social
"What I Might Sing," a poem from my new book THE NATURAL ORDER OF THINGS (pub 10/7), is in the @newyorker.com. Preorder link for a signed copy book is in my pinned post.
@graywolfpress.bsky.social
“What I Might Sing”
“Last Friday, I was thinking of Whitney Houston, / and, because of you, I was thinking too of America.”
www.newyorker.com
Reposted by Donika Kelly
coleskiiiiii.bsky.social
shit ain’t over til it’s over
Reposted by Donika Kelly
prisonculture.bsky.social
“why some people be mad at me sometimes”

they ask me to remember

but they want me to remember

their memories

and i keep remembering

mine

- Lucille Clifton [writing the most Black woman poem of all time]
Reposted by Donika Kelly
nicolechung.bsky.social
today is the last day to apply to be a 2026 Periplus Fellow! application closes at 11:59pm EST
nicolechung.bsky.social
Periplus, a mentorship collective serving US-based early-career writers of color, is now accepting applications for our 2026 class of fellows! Apply by 9/20: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

You can learn more about Periplus (including fellowship eligibility requirements) here: bit.ly/periplusfaq
PERIPLUS: An FAQ
PERIPLUS: AN FAQ Updated August 2025 Hi! Thanks for your interest in Periplus, a mentorship collective serving U.S. writers who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color. We're glad you’re here. Rea...
bit.ly
donikakelly.bsky.social
My new poetry collection The Natural Order of Things drops October 7 and is currently 15% off at bookshop.org!
The Natural Order of Things: Poems
Poems
bookshop.org
Reposted by Donika Kelly
adamparkhomenko.bsky.social
holy shit this is a helluva ad from the Democrat running against Joni Ernst in Iowa. worth every second
Reposted by Donika Kelly
openpoetrybooks.bsky.social
Wow! We're up to 175 participants & more than $10k in pledges/direct contributions!

Let’s keep the momentum going ❤️‍🔥 You can still join the #sealeychallenge Poetry Pledge Fundraiser for Gaza, as a participant or sponsor, at any time. Details here: mailchi.mp/openpoetrybo...
Reposted by Donika Kelly
hoperhenderson.bsky.social
czeslaw milosz, written in berkeley 1971
GIFT
A day so happy.
Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden.
Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers.
There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess.
I knew no one worth my envying him.
Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot.
To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.
In my body I felt no pain.
When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails.
Berkeley, 1971
Reposted by Donika Kelly
Reposted by Donika Kelly
electricliterature.com
In this excerpt from Melissa Febos’s (@melissafebos.bsky.social‬) memoir “The Dry Season,” Febos explores her relationship with pleasure and convinces us of the ecstasy of abstinence.

buff.ly/n43eYXt
My First Lover Was the Bathtub Faucet - Electric Literature
An excerpt from “The Dry Season” by Melissa Febos
buff.ly
Reposted by Donika Kelly
brinkerhoffpoetry.bsky.social
Let us be ocean and coast, a taking
into and over one another:
shifting sediment, a breaking down

of rock: dredge and deposit.

@donikakelly.bsky.social‬, "Love Poem"

www.brinkerhoffpoetr...
Donika Kelly - "Love Poem"
Let us be ocean and coast, a taking
www.brinkerhoffpoetry.org