Evie Shockley is an American poet. Shockley received the 2012 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in Poetry for her book the new black and the 2012 Holmes National Poetry Prize. She was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2018.Early life and educationShockley is originally from Nashville, Tennessee. Shockley received a BA from Northwestern University, studied law at the University of Michigan from whence she received her JD, and received a PhD in English from Duke University.CareerShockley teaches at Rutgers University-New Brunswick in New Jersey.Her work toured South Africa in 2007 as part of Biko 30/30, an exhibit dedicated to activist Steve Biko.She published the book Renegade Poetics: Black Aesthetics and Formal Innovation in African American Poetry in 2011. The book explores the poetics of the Black...
- On New Year's Eve
we make midnight a maquette of the year:
frostlight glinting off snow to solemnize
the vows we offer to ourselves in near
silence: the competition shimmerwise
...
- Disciple
My father: younger, handsome, downright square,
eyes like brown buttons fastening his face
over his soul, mouth not too straight to swear,
to say, man, sonny stitt's ass trashed the place,
...
- Where You Are Planted
He's as high as a georgia pine, my father'd say, half laughing. southern trees
as measure, metaphor. highways lined with kudzu-covered southern trees.
fuchsia, lavender, white, light pink, purple : crape myrtle bouquets burst
...
- Waiting On The Mayflower
i. august 1619
arrived in a boat, named
and unnamed, twenty, pirated
...
- The Anklet
my sister's visit
to india begins
it. i asked for a sari,
but received
...