Evie Shockley Poems

Evie Shockley's Poems! Who is Evie Shockley?

Evie Shockley is a contemporary African American poet and scholar. She was born on September 20, 1965, in Nashville, Tennessee, and raised in a family of educators. She earned a BA in English from Northwestern University, an MA in African American Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a PhD in English from Duke University.

Shockley has published several collections of poetry, including "a half-red sea" (2006), which won the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the PEN/Open Book Award, and "semiautomatic" (2017), which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her work explores issues of race, gender, and identity, often using innovative language and form.

In addition to her poetry, Shockley is also a scholar of African American literature and culture. She has taught at several universities, including Rutgers University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Iowa. She has also served as the president of the American Studies Association.

Overall, Evie Shockley is an important voice in contemporary American poetry and a respected scholar of African American studies.

Evie Shockley Poems

Here are a few poems by Evie Shockley:

"a particular arrangement"
what we must do is arrange

the furniture in a new way

the old ways are not working

what we must do is throw out

the old sofa, the old bed,

the old chest of drawers

we cannot use them anymore

they do not fit us

what we must do is buy

new furniture that suits us

furniture that is shaped

like we are, that accommodates

our curves and planes

our twists and turns

what we must do is make

a particular arrangement

that allows us to move

together and apart

that makes room for light

and air, for love and hate

"the president of the united states, again"
the president of the united states, again,

says that he wants to make america great

again, as if america were ever great

for everyone who has ever lived here,

as if america were not built on the backs

of black folks and brown folks and poor folks,

as if america were not a land of stolen

lands and broken treaties and broken bodies,

as if america were not a place where women

are raped and beaten and paid less than men,

as if america were not a place where queer

folks are beaten and killed and denied rights,

as if america were not a place where children

are torn from their parents and put in cages,

as if america were not a place where bombs

fall on innocent people all around the world.

the president of the united states, again,

is lying to us, is trying to take us back

to a time that never was, a time when only

some of us were free and the rest of us

were in chains, a time when only some of us

were citizens and the rest of us were property.

the president of the united states, again,

is a dangerous man, a man who wants to destroy

the very fabric of our nation, a man who wants

to take us back to a time of hate and fear.

we must resist him, we must stand up

to him, we must fight him with all our might.

"thirteenth amendment"
we are not free, not really,

not yet. we are still in chains,

still being punished for the crime

of being black, of being brown,

of being poor, of being different.

the thirteenth amendment abolished

slavery, except as punishment for crime.

so they made up crimes, invented ways

to lock us up and keep us there,

in the fields, in the factories,

in the prisons, in the streets.

they made us work for nothing,

they made us pay for our own chains.

they made us sing songs of freedom

while they beat us, while they shot us,

while they hanged us from the trees.

we are not free, not really,

not yet. we are still in chains,

still fighting for our lives,

still fighting for our rights,

still fighting to be seen,

to be heard, to be loved.

we are not free, not really,

not yet. but we will be.