Hardback | |
March 7, 2023 | |
9780819500236 | |
English | |
88 | |
3 b&w photos | |
9.00 Inches (US) | |
6.00 Inches (US) | |
$26.00 USD, £19.50 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
Paperback / softback | |
March 7, 2023 | |
9780819500458 | |
English | |
88 | |
3 b&w photos | |
9.00 Inches (US) | |
6.00 Inches (US) | |
$15.95 USD, £11.95 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
Downloadable audio file | |
March 7, 2023 | |
9780819500472 | |
English | |
88 | |
3 b&w photos | |
9.00 Inches (US) | |
6.00 Inches (US) | |
$25.00 USD, £18.50 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
suddenly we
Evie Shockley's new poems invite us to dream—and work—toward a more capacious "we"
In her new poetry collection, Evie Shockley mobilizes visual art, sound, and multilayered language to chart routes towards openings for the collective dreaming of a more capacious "we." How do we navigate between the urgency of our own becoming and the imperative insight that whoever we are, we are in relation to each other? Beginning with the visionary art of Black women like Alison Saar and Alma Thomas, Shockley's poems draw and forge a widening constellation of connections that help make visible the interdependence of everyone and everything on Earth.
perched
i am black, comely,
a girl on the cusp of desire.
my dangling toes take the rest
the rest of my body refuses. spine upright,
my pose proposes anticipation. i poise
in copper-colored tension, intent on
manifesting my soul in the discouraging world.
under the rough eyes of others, i stiffen.
if i must be hard, it will be as a tree, alive
with change. inside me, a love of beauty rises
like sap, sprouts from my scalp
and stretches forth. i send out my song, an aria
blue and feathered, and grow toward it,
choirs bare, but soon to bud. i am
black and becoming.
—after Alison Saar's Blue Bird
In her new poetry collection, Evie Shockley mobilizes visual art, sound, and multilayered language to chart routes towards openings for the collective dreaming of a more capacious "we." How do we navigate between the urgency of our own becoming and the imperative insight that whoever we are, we are in relation to each other? Beginning with the visionary art of Black women like Alison Saar and Alma Thomas, Shockley's poems draw and forge a widening constellation of connections that help make visible the interdependence of everyone and everything on Earth.
perched
i am black, comely,
a girl on the cusp of desire.
my dangling toes take the rest
the rest of my body refuses. spine upright,
my pose proposes anticipation. i poise
in copper-colored tension, intent on
manifesting my soul in the discouraging world.
under the rough eyes of others, i stiffen.
if i must be hard, it will be as a tree, alive
with change. inside me, a love of beauty rises
like sap, sprouts from my scalp
and stretches forth. i send out my song, an aria
blue and feathered, and grow toward it,
choirs bare, but soon to bud. i am
black and becoming.
—after Alison Saar's Blue Bird
About the Author
EVIE SHOCKLEY, (Jersey City, NJ) poet and scholar, is the Zora Neale Hurston Professor of English at Rutgers University. A Lannan Literary Award-winner, she is the author of multiple books of poetry including a half-red sea; the new black, which received the 2012 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in Poetry; and semiautomatic, which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2018.
Endorsements
"suddenly we sings the nuanced realities of Black life as homage, elegy, and polyphonic celebration striking at the core of remembrance. A deep and unfettered thinking, Shockley gives us shouts of joy amidst the drudge of a world unraveled."—Matthew Shenoda, author of Tahrir Suite
Wesleyan University Press | |
Wesleyan Poetry Series | |
|
|
|
|
Hardback | |
March 7, 2023 | |
9780819500236 | |
English | |
88 | |
3 b&w photos | |
9.00 Inches (US) | |
6.00 Inches (US) | |
$26.00 USD, £19.50 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
Paperback / softback | |
March 7, 2023 | |
9780819500458 | |
English | |
88 | |
3 b&w photos | |
9.00 Inches (US) | |
6.00 Inches (US) | |
$15.95 USD, £11.95 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
Downloadable audio file | |
March 7, 2023 | |
9780819500472 | |
English | |
88 | |
3 b&w photos | |
9.00 Inches (US) | |
6.00 Inches (US) | |
$25.00 USD, £18.50 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
Other Titles by Evie Shockley
semiautomatic
Evie Shockley
Jun 2018
- Wesleyan University Press
$15.95 USD
- Paperback / softback
$11.99 USD
- Electronic book text
She Tries Her Tongue, Her Silence Softly Breaks
M. NourbeSe Philip
Oct 2015
- Wesleyan University Press
$15.95 USD
- Paperback / softback
$12.99 USD
- Electronic book text
the new black
Evie Shockley
Mar 2012
- Wesleyan University Press
$24.95 USD
- Hardback
$15.95 USD
- Paperback / softback
$12.99 USD
- Electronic book text
Other Titles from Wesleyan Poetry Series
Icelight
Ranjit Hoskote
Mar 2023
- Wesleyan University Press
$26.00 USD
- Hardback
$15.95 USD
- Paperback / softback
In the Current Where Drowning Is Beautiful
Abigail Chabitnoy
Nov 2022
- Wesleyan University Press
$25.00 USD
- Hardback
$15.95 USD
- Paperback / softback
Other Titles in POETRY / Subjects & Themes / General
What Things Cost
edited by Rebecca Gayle Howell, Ashley M. Jones, Emily J. Jalloul
Mar 2023
- University Press of Kentucky
$27.95 USD
- Hardback
$27.95 USD
- Electronic book text
$27.95 USD
- Electronic book text
Back to the Light
George Ella Lyon
Apr 2021
- University Press of Kentucky
$19.95 USD
- Paperback / softback
$19.95 USD
- Electronic book text
$19.95 USD
- Electronic book text
Other Titles in Poetry by individual poets
Buffalo Dance, expanded edition
Frank X Walker
Nov 2022
- University Press of Kentucky
$19.95 USD
- Paperback / softback
$29.95 USD
- Electronic book text
$19.95 USD
- Electronic book text
{#289-128}
Randall Horton
Sep 2020
- University Press of Kentucky
$19.95 USD
- Paperback / softback
$19.95 USD
- Electronic book text
$19.95 USD
- Electronic book text
T. S. Eliot's Dialectical Imagination
Jewel Spears Brooker
Oct 2018
- The Johns Hopkins University Press
$39.95 USD
- Hardback
$39.95 USD
- Electronic book text