Thank you to Net Galley and Graywolf Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. It's been a few years since the author's last collection and this one was worth waiting for. I appreciate how the author creates so many feelings and pictures through the beautiful use of words. I started reading poetry less than 10 years ago and it's been a learning experience. There were some that I'll need to read through several times to really understand but there were others that really spoke to me upon the first read. My favorites were the poems of love but there were others which you could feel the injustice, anger, sorrow and pain. I will always recommend this author's work!

Donika Kelly's new collection has zing! The poet's newest collection delights with its descriptions of yearning and awe over her partner's body, making a Galatea allusion/reference. Such joy radiates from every poem, and her voice is clear. I can tell that Kelly had a lot of fun writing these poems, and I went on a journey with them. Yes, there is sadness and sorrow, but how could these not follow true, deep love? Donika Kelly makes a fantastic showing of these dichotomies and contrasts, and I can't wait to get a hard copy to gift my friends.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.

Thank you to Graywolf and NetGalley for the Advanced Reader's Copy.

Available October 7th 2025.

Donika Kelly's The Natural Order of Things is a love letter to the South, to Blackness, to Black women, and to enduring and finding joy even when life heavys. What I loved most about this brief collection is the Kelly's indomintable spirit. Like her grandmother who lived and died in Arkansas, Kelly is stubborn in her belief that there is love and joy for all.

The wings of color and spacing of the title alongside the wings were a beautiful design and an idea of the poetry forms to come! A poetry collection about the natural order of things but how does one define the natural order? Everything in the universe is governed by a force of expectations dictated by mother nature herself and not the way humanity attempts to bend the world to their whim. A conversational poetry collection that unveils the deep thoughts associated with the way we look at the natural order of things. This will have you question how we think we manipulate the world to our whim but we are gaslighting ourselves as natural prevails.
How do we define the order of our lives? That is based on the perspective of how the readers personally interact with their current environment and how the Kelly plays with line poetry to force the readers to think further. These are deep questions that poetry really is empowered to expand our critical thinking here. This is a critique on capitalism and the way humans disturb the order themselves. Each poem is written like a conversation with the author. The meter is switched to a coherent conversational tone. Although I would have loved a bit more rhymes and lyrics – I understand that this format really provides more deep thought to the world around us. I also adore poets who take the time to play with the lines and diction in the poem to truly get their points across.
As the poetry collection expands from poem to poem I noticed their were subtle pagan takes with the relationship with nature. Poems such as the “Major Arcana” and “Desire Path: Near Equinox” really resonated with my soul. This collection is not pagan in concept but expands on the beliefs that nature is cyclic and there is always a reason. There is something about the way we interact with the mother earth herself that draws out the question of humanities place in the natural world being much smaller than we would like to believe. In essence humbling humanity for a better treatment of mother nature’s course! Thank you Netgalley and Graywolf Publishing for this advanced digital copy.
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This is a lovely, mostly joyous collection of poetic gems. Kelly's voice absolutely comes through in every line.

I loved this lush, introspective, generous book. Kelly explores lineage, the natural world, and the harrowing times we are living through. I was most taken by the love poems that are woven seamlessly throughout the book. They were sensuous, evocative, and healing. Gorgeous book.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

My favorites are:
Its gone be what it is
Confronted with the argument of your body—
We Came Here to Get Away From You
Metamorphose

The way the author mirrored and reflected nature throughout the poems was beautiful.