The Natural Order of Things: Poems [Paperback]

An extraordinary and unexpected book of finding happiness, by the award-winning author ofThe Renunciations

What does a life look like on the other side of survival, and can the one who survived come to recognize that she did?

Donika Kellys poetry is known for its resonant, unflinching confrontations with trauma and inheritance, translated through myth and nature.The Natural Order of Thingsexpands these explorations into a new realm: one defined by joy and connection. It is an ode to companionship with people, animals, and our planet, and reveals the reparative power of intimacy. In poems inventive, playful, and formally nimble, Kelly pays homage to the voices and people she comes from, the songs of her lineage. Other poems follow the early stirrings of love to erotic transcendence with the lover and the self. Throughout, Kelly finds mirror and marvel in nature, art, and precious friendships. Though it once seemed impossible, she realizes a surprising place for herself, a rightness in the larger world.

The Natural Order of Thingsis a brilliant and moving book, one that reaches toward equilibrium and something like happiness.

An extraordinary and unexpected book of finding happiness, by the award-winning author ofThe RenunciationsDonika Kelly is the author ofBestiary, winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, andThe Renunciations, winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

ANew YorkerBest Book of the Year

The Natural Order of Thingshas a simple premise: that we are put here to love. . . . Donika Kelly sings this love to us in languagesfrom her family's Southern vernacular to the ecstatic compression of the sonnetthat close the distance between grief and joy.Evie Shockley

Theres bravery and relief in leaving behind what no longer serves ussomething IvelƒW