Synopsis:

“In a half-red sea, Evie Shockley is ‘dreaming the lives of the ancestors.’ Navigating against prevailing currents, these poems sail on eddy and backflow, taking inspiration from knots and twists of American history and culture. Whether improvising between the lines of a slave narrative in ‘henry bibb considers love and livery,’ amplifying Lady Day’s most devastating blues in ‘you can say that again, billie,’ or going freestyle with ‘double bop for ntozake shange,’ Shockley’s imagination travels every which away. Her gallery of lyric portraits presents a historical continuum of African Americans caught in double binds of culture and identity, from Crispus Attucks, Phillis Wheatley, Sally Hemmings, and Henry Bibb, to Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, and Anita Hill, along with engaging fictional characters such as Trula, Yellow Mary’s enigmatic companion in Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust. In ‘a thousand words’ and other reflections on contemporary events, Shockley’s firm grounding in history adds weight and depth to her observations of the recent past and present.”

—Harryette Mullen

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Genre:

African-American poetry, Poetry

Type of Work:

Poetry Collection

Purchase From:

Carolina Wren Press

Original Publish Date:

October 1, 2006

Formats and associated ISBNs:

0-932112-53-6

Formats:

Paperback

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