Cave Canem Poetry Prize Reading: Donika Kelly

Hear 2015 Cave Canem Poetry Prize winner Donika Kelly read from her debut collection Bestiary (Graywolf Press, 2016), longlisted for the 2016 National Book Award, and about which judge Nikky Finney writes, “Donika Kelly whistles and crows her book into a psalm of pure resolve. And in the end, no mythology remains. Everything is singed and true.” Linda Susan Jackson, author of What Yellow Sounds Like and reader for the 2015 competition, and Katy Richey, Honorable Mention for Into the Bluest Part, kick off the evening with introductory readings. Free and open to the public. Refreshments to follow.

Donika Kelly is the author of Bestiary, selected by Nikky Finney for the 2015 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, forthcoming from Graywolf Press. She holds an MFA in Writing from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin and a Ph.D. in English from Vanderbilt University, where she specialized in American literature and film studies. A Cave Canem fellow and a 2004 June Fellow of the Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets, Kelly’s poems have appeared in such journals as Hayden’s Ferry Review, West Branch, and Indiana Review.

Linda Susan Jackson‘s most recent collection of poems, What Yellow Sounds Like (Tia Chucha Press, 2007), was a finalist for the National Poetry Series and the Paterson Prize.  She has also written two chapbooks, A History of Beauty (2001) and Vitelline Blues (2002), both published by Black-eyed Susan Publishing. A Cave Canem fellow, she is also the recipient of fellowships from The New Foundation for the Arts, Calabash International Literary Festival, Soul Mountain Writers Retreat and Frost Place. Her work has appeared in Harvard Review, Obsidian, Mission at Tenth, Crab Orchard Review, Brilliant Corners and Rivendell, among others, and has been featured on From the Fishouse audio archive.  She is an associate professor of English at Medgar Evers College/CUNY.

Katy Richey is a Cave Canem and Callaloo fellow. Her work has appeared in Rattle, Fjords Review, Little Patuxent Review, The Offing and other journals. She is the recipient of a 2015 Fine Arts Work Center Walker Scholarship for Writers of Color and a 2014 Maryland State Arts Council individual artist award. Richey e hosts the Sunday Kind of Love reading series open mic at Busboys and Poets in Washington D.C., sponsored by Split This Rock.