The Donkey Elegies

An Essay in Poems (Excerpted)

Nickole Brown, with illustrations by Becca Stadtlander

"Look out over that fence and tell me if through the rain you don’t recognize, / standing there, / that beautiful, necessary, weary donkey."


Nickole Brown is the author of Sister and Fanny Says. She lives in Asheville, North Carolina, where she volunteers at two different animal sanctuaries. To Those Who Were Our First Gods, a chapbook of poems about these animals, won the 2018 Rattle Prize, and her essay-in-poems, The Donkey Elegies, was published by Sibling Rivalry Press in 2020.
Illustrations by Becca Stadtlander, the Bright Agency.

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