Semiautomatic
by Evie Shockley

Poetry that acts as a fierce and loving resistance to violence.

Art can’t shield our bodies or stabilize the earth’s climate, but semiautomatic by Evie Shockley insists that it can nurture the spirit and rekindle the imagination. The collection reacts primarily to the twenty-first century’s unmistakable evidence of the conditions of black life—experiences that aren’t exactly new but have become more transparent in recent times. The poems weave an intricate web, drawing links between various forms of violence that impact individuals across racial, ethnic, gender, class, sexual, national, and linguistic divides that may or may not segregate us. How can we preserve our humanity—our capacity to feel profoundly and think independently—in light of an almost constant barrage of physical, societal, and environmental transgressions? Where do we unearth language that aptly conveys, processes, and contests the offenses and wounds we observe and endure? What actions can jolt us from a repetitive emotional loop, where we oscillate between outrage, grief, and despair?

In compositions that range from fragments to narratives, quizzes to constraints, from structured to prose and sequences to songs, semiautomatic scours both the past and present, seeking beacons to guide us toward a more optimistic future.