Last night The English and World Literatures Department was delighted to host it’s first big event of the fall, the semi-annual Lit City reading. We were honored to welcome award winning poet Donika Kelly to the Regina Peruggi room, where she graciously read from her latest full length work Beastiary, as well as shared upcoming works in progress.

The intimate crowd enjoyed sweet treats and beverages along with Donika’s poems, and after the reading portion of the night wrapped she was gracious enough to answer questions from the audience. When asked what drew her to the mythical creatures that appear in her collection, she explained that these imaginary beasts served as a way to explore and understand power, breakups, and boundaries. When asked about learning how to revise, she said revision is her favorite part of writing, and that “The first draft’s job is to capture something essential”, not to be a perfect finished piece. She said she write poetry and not prose because, “I think analogously”. She went on to admit that she also prefers brevity and compression, and doesn’t even enjoy writing emails #relatable.

Also notable was Donika’s awesome Golden Girls sweatshirt, which some students weren’t immediately familiar with #kidsthesedays!

EWL is grateful to Donika for her joyous and candid reading, and to all who attended and made this event a success. If poetry is essential to us (and obviously we think that it is), then last night was and essential and invigorating evening for us all.  Thanks for reading, and remember to be kind to yourself and to all you encounter this weekend.