“women’s rights at one hundred (but who’s counting?)”: Eight Questions for Evie Shockley
As a modern day female, I don’t have to ask permission to learn, speak, or play sports. To live in a world where education, independence and self expression as assumed rights are in actuality a privilege that is taken for granted. Yet, the history of women’s rights reminds us that such freedoms were not freely given, they were in contrast fought for, debated for and defended by the compelling women before us. Poet and scholar Evie Shockley brings this legacy to modern day eyes. A Pulitzer Prize Finalist and a winner of Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, Shockley is renowned for her exploration on gender, race, and societal study in America. Her poetry combines history and poetry through an original approach, urging readers to recognize the ways in which past struggles resonate in contemporary life. Shockley’s work reminds us that while progress within society has been made, the fight for equality continues.
Evie Shockley was born in 1965 in Nashville, Tennessee, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree from Northwestern University, a Law degree from University of Michigan and then earning her PhD in English at Duke. Shockley has many collections, such as The Gorgon Goddess, Suddenly We, Semiautomatic, The New Black, 31 Words *prose poems* ,Renegade Poetics: Black Aesthetics and Formal Innovation in African American Poetry, and A Half-Red Sea. She now is a professor of English at Rutgers University, and is the Director of Creative Writing & Writers House/Zora Neale Hurston.
I read that you grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, a city deeply rooted in music and culture. Has the musical heritage of Nashville ever influenced rhythms, sounds, or themes in poetry?
It certainly has. I wrote a poem called “a background in music” (published in my book the new black) that was all about the ways that Nashville’s history as Music City, USA impressed itself in my psyche. But beyond that kind of direct response, I would say my writerly voice, especially in my first two books of poetry, is infused with the impulse to foreground the music in language (with assonance and consonance, true and slant rhyme). I am also attuned to the rhythms of speech, where I grew up and beyond. Finally, I include a lot of allusions to songs and song lyrics in my poems, many of which are intended to be sung rather than spoken!
In Your poem, “women’s voting rights at one hundred (but who’s counting)“, you use history, irony, playfulness, and intensity in the lines. Could you tell me about how you chose this form and voice? What made you feel this structure best brought out the significance of marking one hundred years of women’s suffrage?
My poem “women’s voting rights at one hundred (but who’s counting?)” was a difficult one to write. It started out much longer, with much longer lines, and ultimately felt too close to prose for my taste. Once I came up with the theme of counting, I was able to use repetition (“one vote”) to connect the different historical moments and use the revised counting chants from my childhood to heighten the poem’s irony. I often turn to wordplay as a way of drawing readers into poems on tough subjects.
The interruption in the title “but who’s counting” caught my attention. What led you to include that phrase, and how did you hope it would shape the reader’s expectations before they started to read and assess the poem?
The poem was commissioned in 2020 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. But what that amendment meant for white women in 1920 was not part of the reality for Black women in many parts of the country, even forty years later. I wanted readers to come into the poem thinking about the fact that “progress” happens for different people at different times.
While reading I wondered how much of it came out of research versus your own thoughts/experiences on the topic of women’s suffrage. Did you research about women’s suffrage while writing, or was it more about channeling your personal reflection to the anniversary and its unfinished and continued struggles?
For this poem, I drew a bit on my childhood memories, a bit on historical actors I already knew and admired (Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Fannie Lou Hamer), and a bit on contemporary news. I didn’t have to do research to discover these stories, because these women — including my mother and Stacey Abrams — were all people I was interested in and inspired by before I sat down to write. I did do some fact-checking, however, to make sure I had my dates and details correct, in terms of the historical and contemporary figures.
Who in your life may act as your biggest influences? While reading the Poem “Women’s Voting Rights at one Hundred (but who’s counting)”, I noticed you talked about your childhood and what it was like to go with your mother to vote. Is there anyone else, possibly another artist that may influence your poetry?
My mother is certainly an influence on how I try to move through the world. She is both one of the kindest and most ethical people I know. In terms of influences on my poetry, I would have to say Gwendolyn Brooks and Harryette Mullen (among others!) were hugely important to the development of my aesthetics. I think Prince is a musician whose work taught me things about what my poetry could do — namely, that my poetry didn’t have to be like everyone else’s; it could be strange, unconventional, and varied.
What are your thoughts on the state of American poetry in modern day? In class we have read articles written by Joseph Epstein and Dana Gioia about the current state of American poetry and it is revealed that poetry has become a club made for only poets. What is your take on the state of American poetry today and are there any other articles you suggest we read?
I don’t agree that poetry is club made only for poets. I think poetry invites everyone to be a poet (whether “for fun” or “seriously”)! Poetry is all around us: in advertising, in songs and rap, in most of our religious texts, in our greeting cards, on social media, you name it. Anyone who thinks otherwise is saying “poetry” but meaning “the kind of poetry that I like or value” — and that’s a limitation I don’t accept. You could read this interview with Prof. Stephanie Burt, who has taught a course and written a book on Taylor Swift’s lyrics. Or you could read poet Tiana Clark’s brilliant breakdown of the literary and visual allusions in Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show. But, pop culture aside, some poetry is going to be best appreciated by people who read a lot of poetry — just like people who watch a lot of football appreciate the game on a deeper level that people who only watch the Super Bowl. And that’s just fine.
If any of your poems could come to life and you could live in it for 24hrs, which poem would you choose and why?
Interesting question! Maybe “alma’s arkestral vision (or, farther out)” — because I really love the Alma Thomas painting that inspired it (“Starry Night and the Astronauts”) and I would love to visit the world that I imagined within the world she imagine, where a “we” that is expansive and inclusive is able to travel through color and sound together.
As I have noticed your poetry is often more historical, when you write about history and social struggles, how do you balance honoring real events and what do you hope readers take away from that balance?
I’m not sure I understand this question. But I’ll just say that I am often inspired by real events, past and present, in my poetry, and it doesn’t feel constraining to me at all. The fact that we live in an era when we can look up references so easily (in Wikipedia or through a Google search — AI is less reliable) means that I can write a little or a lot about historical or current events, trusting that my readers can find out more context or backstory if they need it. Really, I want my poems to be a gateway into knowledge about things that have shaped the world we live in. But not having to include all the facts in the poem allows me the space to stay true to my aesthetics of wordplay, sonic beauty, and otherwise vibrant language, even when I’m writing about social justice and tough histories.