A Half-Red Sea

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. 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