Over the weekend, I accepted a request to review Evie Shockley’s soon to be released book a half-red sea from Carolina Wren Press. After accepting to write the review, I couldn’t get it out of my head that I knew the name Evie Shockley. And sure enough I did know it. She was just one of many poets featured in the All Ladies Issue of MiPoeasias this past February.
In my short review of the issue, I compiled a list of the best poems of the issue. I included her poem "Elocation (or Exit Us)" in that list.
The vivid and highly visceral title of her book, a half-red sea, is taken from this very poem.
I’m honored to be writing this review. And I’m not one to hold onto expectations, but from what I have read from her, I am expecting great things. Stay tuned for an update on where you can read the review.
Evie Shockley‘s poetry appears in her chapbook, The Gorgon Goddess (2001), also from the Carolina Wren Press, and in numerous journals and anthologies, including African American Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Blue Fifth Review, Brilliant Corners, Callaloo, Crab Orchard Review, Fascicle, From the Fishouse, Hambone, HOW2, nocturnes (re)view, Poetry Daily, Rainbow Darkness, and Talisman. She was awarded a residency at the Hedgebrook Women Writers’ Retreat in 2003 and is a graduate fellow of Cave Canem. An assistant professor at Rutgers University, Shockley teaches literature and creative writing and is at work on a project theorizing the relationship of innovation and race in African American poetry.
A sampling of her work is online. I recommend these poems:
"Writer’s Block"
"O pioneer"
"Protect Yourself"
"Where it is clean"
"You can say that again, billie;" "Poem for when his arm open so wide you fall through;" "Meditation: Having everything to live for, the poet worries;" and "Miles’s Muse." (Read them all here.)
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