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The Renunciations: Poems
An extraordinary collection of endurance and transformation by the award-winning author of Bestiary
The Renunciations is a book of resilience, survival, and the journey to radically shift one’s sense of self in the face of trauma. Moving between a childhood marked by love and abuse and the breaking marriage of that adult child, Donika Kelly charts memory and the body as landscapes to be traversed and tended. These poems construct life rafts and sanctuaries even in their most devastating confrontations with what a person can bear, with how families harm themselves. With the companionship of “the oracle”—an observer of memory who knows how each close call with oblivion ends—the act of remembrance becomes curative, and personal mythologies give way to a future defined less by wounds than by possibility.
In this gorgeous and heartrending second collection, we find the home one builds inside oneself after reckoning with a legacy of trauma—a home whose construction starts “with a razing.”
The Renunciations is a book of resilience, survival, and the journey to radically shift one’s sense of self in the face of trauma. Moving between a childhood marked by love and abuse and the breaking marriage of that adult child, Donika Kelly charts memory and the body as landscapes to be traversed and tended. These poems construct life rafts and sanctuaries even in their most devastating confrontations with what a person can bear, with how families harm themselves. With the companionship of “the oracle”—an observer of memory who knows how each close call with oblivion ends—the act of remembrance becomes curative, and personal mythologies give way to a future defined less by wounds than by possibility.
In this gorgeous and heartrending second collection, we find the home one builds inside oneself after reckoning with a legacy of trauma—a home whose construction starts “with a razing.”
94 pages, Paperback
First published May 4, 2021
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2037 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 152 reviews
May 30, 2021
Trauma is a hard thing to write about. In stunning poems such as these it requires not only excavation but thinking about how to present what is excavated, artfully. Kelly does that incredibly well here in a book of poems about childhood sexual abuse and the lifelong aftermath. There are also poems about love and the end of love, about memory and remembering. The last two sections are particularly strong in a book that is, overall, intelligent and deeply affecting.
August 29, 2021
“self-portrait with a door” has to be the most heartbreaking poem i have ever read. “I will bear him wherever I am taken / and no one will kill him and he will not die.” my god.
May 9, 2021
So much pain in her poems.
Read
January 14, 2023I returned this to the library before I could write down my favorite poems 😡 but these were on the whole very powerful, many were about abuse which could be hard to read but were striking collected together. a lot of ocean and landscape imagery, in particular about nature entering or reforming the body.
May 4, 2023
Great poetry from Donika Kelly. This is from “Hymn”
but maybe it know
how to love the inside of me.
Maybe I don’t believe in meaning in god
in plans in paths and the closer I am
to my animal self the more human I am
the more I let myself break
like a wave. Ocean
in my arm. Stone in my arm.
Iron and wood and brass in my arm
Excerpt from: "The Renunciations: Poems" by Donika Kelly. Scribd.
but maybe it know
how to love the inside of me.
Maybe I don’t believe in meaning in god
in plans in paths and the closer I am
to my animal self the more human I am
the more I let myself break
like a wave. Ocean
in my arm. Stone in my arm.
Iron and wood and brass in my arm
Excerpt from: "The Renunciations: Poems" by Donika Kelly. Scribd.
November 8, 2021
Go slow with this one. I cannot imagine what this was like to write. In The Renunciations, Donika Kelly tracks an intergenerational legacy of childhood sexual abuse. Kelly uses the voice of "The Oracle" throughout to blur the lines between mother and child; childhood and adulthood; life and death. Kelly is particularly strong with motif (doors, the sea, rings on a trees) in a way that is never heavy-handed and somehow manages to surface emotion more than even her most bluntly saddening poems.
Two favorites were "Love Poem" and "Sighting: Tarot." "The Oracle Remembers the Future Cannot Be Avoided" and "Self-Portrait with Door" were also particularly strong, but cannot be called favorites as they are devastating.
Love Poem -
Let us be ocean and coast, a taking
into and over one another:
shifting sediment, a breaking down
of rock: dredge and deposit. A series
of prepositions meaning proximity,
although most of us extends away
from one another. Once, in winter,
I ventured far inland, forgot the crash
of gravity pulling you over me
and away - forgot there is a place
where we meet and retreat but never let go.
Let this be a moment of remembering,
my love, as I stand at the edge of myself,
cliff and sea grass and the screaming gull above,
sighting your breadth to the horizon
Two favorites were "Love Poem" and "Sighting: Tarot." "The Oracle Remembers the Future Cannot Be Avoided" and "Self-Portrait with Door" were also particularly strong, but cannot be called favorites as they are devastating.
Love Poem -
Let us be ocean and coast, a taking
into and over one another:
shifting sediment, a breaking down
of rock: dredge and deposit. A series
of prepositions meaning proximity,
although most of us extends away
from one another. Once, in winter,
I ventured far inland, forgot the crash
of gravity pulling you over me
and away - forgot there is a place
where we meet and retreat but never let go.
Let this be a moment of remembering,
my love, as I stand at the edge of myself,
cliff and sea grass and the screaming gull above,
sighting your breadth to the horizon
October 11, 2021
I read The Renunciations as part of Roxane Gay’s Audacious Book Club with Literati. I’ve been trying to read more poetry (or, rather read poetry *in general*) this year, so I was really excited to see it in the lineup. I liked it very much, and I’m glad I read it.
This collection is heavy — it’s about the poet’s experiences with both childhood sexual abuse and the recent dissolution of her marriage to her wife. As you can expect, it’s raw and moving. But I also loved the way these poems were simultaneously layered and accessible — each of them begs to be read twice, three times. Give them that attention, though, and they’ll unfold in front of you beautifully.
This collection is heavy — it’s about the poet’s experiences with both childhood sexual abuse and the recent dissolution of her marriage to her wife. As you can expect, it’s raw and moving. But I also loved the way these poems were simultaneously layered and accessible — each of them begs to be read twice, three times. Give them that attention, though, and they’ll unfold in front of you beautifully.
May 28, 2021
Literally breathtaking.
July 2, 2021
Shook!! Incredible poetry collection. Definitely going to be one of my favorite books this year.
August 17, 2021
Incredible.
I can’t believe I get to say this, but thank you Roxane Gay for sending me this book.
I can’t believe I get to say this, but thank you Roxane Gay for sending me this book.
November 25, 2024
Haunting, beautiful, ugly, no holds barred. Some of the best writing I've ever read about trauma.
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February 16, 2023Really knocked out by the second half. Equal parts gruesome and powerful.
July 30, 2023
masterful poet
April 11, 2021
“Even an oracle / cannot choose what or how / to remember.”
- The Oracle Remembers the Future Cannot Be Avoided
Donika Kelly has done it again, folks. A big fan of her first collection “Bestiary,” I was thrilled to receive an ARC of her newest collection “The Renunciations” from NetGalley and was not disappointed. Kelly’s collection builds on the foundations laid in Bestiary, continuing similar themes and exploring new ones. The narrative arc of the work, too, is striking. Divided into sections “Now” “Then” “Now / Then” and “After,” the script flips between the idea of the speaker’s childhood and a failing marriage. From love poems full of aching tenderness towards an increasingly absent partner to poems grappling with the idea of worship, inheritance, and abuse to poems making apologies by the handfuls, this collection is one that will stick with me for a very long time.
- The Oracle Remembers the Future Cannot Be Avoided
Donika Kelly has done it again, folks. A big fan of her first collection “Bestiary,” I was thrilled to receive an ARC of her newest collection “The Renunciations” from NetGalley and was not disappointed. Kelly’s collection builds on the foundations laid in Bestiary, continuing similar themes and exploring new ones. The narrative arc of the work, too, is striking. Divided into sections “Now” “Then” “Now / Then” and “After,” the script flips between the idea of the speaker’s childhood and a failing marriage. From love poems full of aching tenderness towards an increasingly absent partner to poems grappling with the idea of worship, inheritance, and abuse to poems making apologies by the handfuls, this collection is one that will stick with me for a very long time.
February 20, 2022
This book was written by a former poetry professor of mine so I may be a bit biased, but I think it was great. Dr. Kelly carries this melancholic feeling throughout the collection through the way she talks about trauma - specifically sexual abuse and the everlasting effects - as well as love - both beginning and ending. I really appreciated the brutal honesty in which she writes about memory and how it often fails her as she's writing some of these pieces. I recommend giving this a read.
April 21, 2021
Read my full review here: https://booksandbakes.substack.com/p/...
These poems are beautiful and heart-wrenching. There's a lyrical formality to them that makes the surprising twists and turns of language even more impactful. I loved Kelly's first collection and this one is equally amazing, if brutal. CW: child abuse, rape.
These poems are beautiful and heart-wrenching. There's a lyrical formality to them that makes the surprising twists and turns of language even more impactful. I loved Kelly's first collection and this one is equally amazing, if brutal. CW: child abuse, rape.
September 14, 2021
An intense read about longing, trauma, family estrangement and nature. The brackets used within certain poems are a unique way of expressing what cannot be said.
September 23, 2021
Painful, beautiful poetry.
May 16, 2021
I will bear him wherever I am taken
and no one will kill him and he will not die.
D. Kelly "Self - Portrait with Door"
The Renunciations is a follow up poetry collection to Donika Kelly's outstanding debut Bestiary. Unlike Bestiary this book presents a singular narrative broken in parts, an autobiographical confessional, driven by exploration of trauma caused by the sexual abuse she suffered in childhood at the hands of her father; and its aftermath.
It is hard to pass judgement on something so personal that clearly took a lot of courage and a lot of time to process and create. The Renunciations is an awfully effective collection that packs a solid emotional gut punch, sometimes so solid I wish it came with a trigger warning - because it gets graphic and it dwells. The repetition cycle is a familiar inescapability.
Nothing to do with the thematic contents, but the book opens with Anne Carson quote and unfortunately some of the poems do sound like Carson imitation. Which would be fine as a singular tribute, yet as a stylistic choice it was distracting and rather weakened some of Kelly's work. It is hard to not get caught in Anne's lingual nets, nevertheless, one should always know better. There is no need to be anyone's second violin when you have a unique and beautiful sound of your own. That personal disappointment aside, it was a fantastic if painful experience and I am, as always, looking forward to reading more of Donika Kelly's poetry.
Favourites: Bedtime Story for the Bruised - Hearted, Donika Questions the Oracle, Self - Portrait with Door, Apologia, Where I End Up .
and no one will kill him and he will not die.
D. Kelly "Self - Portrait with Door"
The Renunciations is a follow up poetry collection to Donika Kelly's outstanding debut Bestiary. Unlike Bestiary this book presents a singular narrative broken in parts, an autobiographical confessional, driven by exploration of trauma caused by the sexual abuse she suffered in childhood at the hands of her father; and its aftermath.
It is hard to pass judgement on something so personal that clearly took a lot of courage and a lot of time to process and create. The Renunciations is an awfully effective collection that packs a solid emotional gut punch, sometimes so solid I wish it came with a trigger warning - because it gets graphic and it dwells. The repetition cycle is a familiar inescapability.
Nothing to do with the thematic contents, but the book opens with Anne Carson quote and unfortunately some of the poems do sound like Carson imitation. Which would be fine as a singular tribute, yet as a stylistic choice it was distracting and rather weakened some of Kelly's work. It is hard to not get caught in Anne's lingual nets, nevertheless, one should always know better. There is no need to be anyone's second violin when you have a unique and beautiful sound of your own. That personal disappointment aside, it was a fantastic if painful experience and I am, as always, looking forward to reading more of Donika Kelly's poetry.
Favourites: Bedtime Story for the Bruised - Hearted, Donika Questions the Oracle, Self - Portrait with Door, Apologia, Where I End Up .
December 31, 2021
There are reasons I bought this book the day I first heard about it. And there are reasons I put off finishing it until the last day of the year. I related to closely to some of the poems from the author's first book, that I had to have this one.
The book alternates between the past and the present, and then the future. It would be lovely to think that the past is only in the past and stays there neatly. What do you do when the past intrudes on your present? What of the past that lives inside of you? What of the past that formed who you are? There is no good answer (I think) but these poems perhaps touch on those questions.
I want to understand every word of these poems. I want to write responses to some of them. There are things that are easy to say, and things that are not. They are not what you think they are, the easy and the difficult. It was painful to read these. I wish I could fix both of us, but I'm not sure there is a fixing.
I am struck when I read poetry, at how much of us gets read into each poem. It's those parts that I relate to, that I feel like I understand. I hope I did these poems justice with my reading of them, but I know I did not. I will come back another year, and find ways to fit my self and my understandings into these powerful words, into the spaces between the words.
The book alternates between the past and the present, and then the future. It would be lovely to think that the past is only in the past and stays there neatly. What do you do when the past intrudes on your present? What of the past that lives inside of you? What of the past that formed who you are? There is no good answer (I think) but these poems perhaps touch on those questions.
I want to understand every word of these poems. I want to write responses to some of them. There are things that are easy to say, and things that are not. They are not what you think they are, the easy and the difficult. It was painful to read these. I wish I could fix both of us, but I'm not sure there is a fixing.
I am struck when I read poetry, at how much of us gets read into each poem. It's those parts that I relate to, that I feel like I understand. I hope I did these poems justice with my reading of them, but I know I did not. I will come back another year, and find ways to fit my self and my understandings into these powerful words, into the spaces between the words.
April 29, 2024
Dr. Kelly writes about trauma in this collection in a way that is painful, powerful, and commendable in its attempt to capture something that often goes beyond words.
There are lines in here that genuinely make my heart sink, and other lines that provide palpable hope among so much darkness. I admire how she captures more abstract "Big Feelings" through the structural devices of repeated titles, redacted phrases, the distance of an "Oracle" speaker, and the organization of the collection in general. Her craft is a reminder that, even emotions that we believe are indescribable, can be grounded in specific imagery and form, and that anchoring is what conveys their full potential.
Wow. Just wow. I love this collection. I feel so grateful that I get to work with such a talented author.
There are lines in here that genuinely make my heart sink, and other lines that provide palpable hope among so much darkness. I admire how she captures more abstract "Big Feelings" through the structural devices of repeated titles, redacted phrases, the distance of an "Oracle" speaker, and the organization of the collection in general. Her craft is a reminder that, even emotions that we believe are indescribable, can be grounded in specific imagery and form, and that anchoring is what conveys their full potential.
Wow. Just wow. I love this collection. I feel so grateful that I get to work with such a talented author.
October 6, 2021
I received this book from my Litterati subscription. For my second month I joined Roxane Gay’s book club, Audacious. I read more poetry when I was younger and in college, but it’s been awhile since I have really read any poetry deeper than Shell Silverstein. So I am not going to act like I understand more than I do when reviewing this book. And what I can say is; that I like the way that Donika Kelly puts words together.
This is full of trigger warnings, she discusses sexual abuse, child abuse and suicide ideation and attempts. And I really appreciate how vulnerable she is to discuss these things in her poetry. To lay her pain out to us in words, that is truly badass. It took me a bit to get through this, more than the month of September this was the pick for. Because I really sat with some of her poems and reread them. I would caution other readers to be prepared for what is coming, she uses her words to build an image for the reader. And some of it is brutal, but it’s her truth.
I would definitely pick up other collections by this author. This was a short book only 94 pages, and I think that was a good amount for the heaviness of the poetry.
This is full of trigger warnings, she discusses sexual abuse, child abuse and suicide ideation and attempts. And I really appreciate how vulnerable she is to discuss these things in her poetry. To lay her pain out to us in words, that is truly badass. It took me a bit to get through this, more than the month of September this was the pick for. Because I really sat with some of her poems and reread them. I would caution other readers to be prepared for what is coming, she uses her words to build an image for the reader. And some of it is brutal, but it’s her truth.
I would definitely pick up other collections by this author. This was a short book only 94 pages, and I think that was a good amount for the heaviness of the poetry.
September 30, 2024
This book was moving, dark, and beautifully written. The collection oscillates back and forth between the past and the present, and that structure really suited the work. Many blackout poems that were short and arresting among the full length poems. "Sighting: Tarot," "Mounting Dead Butterflies is Not Hard," and "From the Catalogue of Cruelty" were my favorites.
June 10, 2021
These stunning poems cover a dark history of abuse but there is hope and renewal in the end.
"Mounting Dead Butterflies Is Not Hard" was easily the one that left the biggest impression. That "I keep looking away" feels so true to (my) life.
"Mounting Dead Butterflies Is Not Hard" was easily the one that left the biggest impression. That "I keep looking away" feels so true to (my) life.
August 24, 2021
When I saw Roxanne Gay suggest this book, I wanted to try it out. This was a quick read that focuses on trauma and abuse and how we recover and grow. There is so much pain but yet so much beauty in all of these poems.
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January 19, 2022Oof. Very good and very painful.
August 27, 2022
Love poems, heartbreak poems, poems about abuse and forgiveness, poems about healing. So good, all.
November 9, 2022
Re-reading this book when the sun is in Scorpio hits different...man, beautiful and brutal, awful and astonishing...
April 12, 2024
This is the best, craftiest, most relatable poetry I've ever read. 👏🏻
January 25, 2025
found this at book lore in the poetry section and really loved it! a perceptive and intimate exploration of child abuse, racial injustice, and rebuilding oneself in the light of it all
Displaying 1 - 30 of 152 reviews