Evie Shockley

Evie Shockley is an associate professor of English at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ.  Her research brings critical race, gender, and queer studies insights to bear upon a range of literary and cultural issues.  Her criticism includes the book Renegade Poetics: Black Aesthetics and Formal Innovation in African American Poetry (University of Iowa Press, 2011); essays on poetry, poetics, and race in such periodicals as Callalloo, Contemporary Literature, and Boston Review; and articles on “gothic homelessness” in African American literature and culture in African American Review and Katrina’s Imprint: Race and Vulnerability in America (Rutgers University Press, 2010). 

Her poetry publications include the new black (Wesleyan University Press, 2011), winner of the 2012 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in Poetry; a half-red sea (Carolina Wren Press, 2006); and two chapbooks.  She coedited the poetry journal jubilat from 2007-2011, and currently serves as a contributing or advisory editor for At Length, Backbone Poetry Journal, Evening Will Come, Lemon Hound, and Brilliant Corners: A Journal of Jazz and Literature. 

She received the 2012 Holmes National Poetry Prize; her work has also been supported by fellowships from ACLS and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and residencies at Hedgebrook, MacDowell, and the Millay Colony for the Arts.