Poets & Writers Theater

In this event hosted by the Boutelle-Day Poetry Center at Smith College, Evie Shockley reads a selection of new poems, as well as some from her latest poetry collection, suddenly we (Wesleyan University Press, 2023), and discusses her vision for solidarity in these times in a conversation with Yona Harvey.

“blood tells the story,” reads Evie Shockley from her poem “you can say that again, billie” discussed in this PBS Books conversation about the history of racism, violence, and artistic tradition in the American South with historian Robin D. G. Kelley, actress LisaGay Hamilton, and professor Elisa New, director and host of the Poetry in America television series.

“It matters what you call a thing,” reads Solmaz Sharif from her poem “Look” in this 2017 reading and conversation with Evie Shockley for the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. For more Sharif, read “Shadows of Words: Our Twelfth Annual Look at Debut Poets” from the January/February 2017 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Poetry travels, you don’t need a lot of money to write it, you don’t need a lot of money to print it and distribute it.” Evie Shockley, a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in poetry for her third collection, semiautomatic (Wesleyan University Press, 2017), talks with City of Asylum about the accessibility of writing poetry and its long and powerful tradition.

“dear existential fallacy, // i need you to be concrete. / you need me to liquidate / my account.” In this 2017 event at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, Evie Shockley reads from her collections the new black (Wesleyan University Press, 2012) and semiautomatic (Wesleyan University Press, 2017), a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize.

In this video, poets Kevin Young, Evie Shockley, and Terrance Hayes participate in a roundtable symposium on newness in the creative arts and American expressive culture held at Brown University’s Granoff Center for the Creative Arts.