Visiting Writers Series

1330 Elmhurst Drive Northeast,Cedar Rapids IA 52402

21 February, 2023

Description

Mount Mercy’s Visiting Writers Series will host Donika Kelly, author of two award-winning collections of poetry.  Donika will lead an interactive poetry workshop 2:00-3:15 PM, followed by a reading, Q&A, and book signing 3:30-4:30 PM. Both events will be held in Flaherty Community Room 204 in Basile Hall. Donika's poems focus on healing—from racism, broken relationships, and the trauma of being sexually abused by her father. Donika fills her poems with love for others, for self, and for creatures—both mythical and real—that she sometimes uses to depict herself and explore her feelings.  Donika's first collection, Bestiary (Graywolf, 2016), won three awards including the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, given to an emerging Black poet. Her second, The Renunciations (Graywolf, 2021), was a finalist for the National Book Circle Critics Award for Poetry, and won the Anisfield-Wolf Award—the only national juried prize for literature that confronts racism and celebrates diversity. Former recipients include Natasha Tretheway, Lucille Clifton, and Toni Morrison.  Donika earned an Master of Fine Arts from the University of Texas at Austin and a PhD in English from Vanderbilt University. Her poems have been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. Donika lives in Iowa City with her wife, the nonfiction writer Melissa Febos, and is an Assistant Professor in the English Department at the University of Iowa, where she teaches creative writing.