Torch :: Evie Shockley

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Evie Shockley

Evie Shockley is the author of a half-red sea (2006) and a poetry chapbook, The Gorgon Goddess (2001), both published by Carolina Wren Press. Her work appears or is forthcoming in numerous journals and anthologies, including 1913: a journal of forms, No Tell Motel, Pluck! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts and Culture, PMS:PoemMemoirStory, Studio, Talisman, and The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South. In 2007 she guest edited “~QUEST~”: a special issue of MiPOesias featuring the work of contemporary African American poets and she is presently serving as a guest editor of jubilat. Shockley is a Cave Canem graduate fellow, recipient of a residency at the Hedgebrook retreat center for women writers, and a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Her work on a book-length study of race and innovation in African American poetry is supported by fellowships from the ACLS and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, where she is currently a Scholar-in-Residence. She teaches African American literature and creative writing at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.

all of you, legendary

you are a garden

of sharp blossoms,

the flowering

of survival, a rainbow

of defense. you’ve been

crossed and double-

crossed, but you remain

erect. what

could you engender

except danger? for

every one of you

that dies, a bouquet

more come

into bloom, each

of you painted

for your distinct

battle in an age-

old war. a staggering

army of lees,

a barricade of barracudas

nothing gets past. no

one can approach

your home, not

even you.

—after frederick brown’s stagger lee

still there

don’t attend my funeral. i

won’t. they’ll have thrown

it, like a water balloon, against

my wishes. but those who know

me will look for me where i now

look for her: in the swollen noggin

of the p or hidden under the hump

of the h or tucked up in the attic

of the e. between the words

found side by side because she

strung them. in the questioning

tear-glad eyes of the poets,

which ask have you seen her

too?

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