Born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, poet Evie Shockley earned a BA at Northwestern University, a JD at the University of Michigan, and a PhD in English literature at Duke University. Both spare and lyrical, Shockley’s poems often begin with an active interrogation of received poetic forms and practices, such as capitalization. But her work is also interested in subjectivity, the lyric tradition, and notions of place. Coeditor of the journal jubilat from 2004 to 2007, Shockley is a professor at Rutgers University. She lives in Jersey City, New Jersey.
By Evie Shockley
when the cultivators of corpses are busy seeding
plague across vast acres of the land, choking schools
and churches in the motley toxins of grief, breeding
virile shoots of violence so soon verdant even fools
...
By Evie Shockley
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
of champagne and chandeliers to attract
laughter and cheers: the glow from the fireplace
reflecting the...
