Donika Kelly on Leaving Home Behind

Brianna Brown

“I crossed into a space where my life was no longer defined by my parents and what they needed from me. And that gave me time and space to begin this journey of figuring out what I needed.”

Donika Kelly is the author of THE RENUNCIATIONS (Graywolf 2021) and BESTIARY (Graywolf). BESTIARY is the winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Poetry, and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. Her poems have been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic online, The Paris Review, and Foglifter. She currently lives in Iowa City and is an Assistant Professor at the University of Iowa, where she teaches creative writing.