WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.900 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.900 --> 00:00:04.860 align:middle line:84% Thank you so much for sharing your work with us. 00:00:04.860 --> 00:00:08.516 align:middle line:84% It's so good to have your voices in the room with us tonight. 00:00:08.516 --> 00:00:11.862 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:11.862 --> 00:00:16.180 align:middle line:90% 00:00:16.180 --> 00:00:22.180 align:middle line:84% So I am thrilled to introduce Evie Shockley to the Tucson 00:00:22.180 --> 00:00:25.240 align:middle line:84% poetry audience, a woman who I believe 00:00:25.240 --> 00:00:28.870 align:middle line:84% is one of the most important poets writing today. 00:00:28.870 --> 00:00:32.170 align:middle line:84% I had the honor and a lot of work last year 00:00:32.170 --> 00:00:36.070 align:middle line:84% to chair the poetry jury for the Pulitzer Prize, 00:00:36.070 --> 00:00:39.880 align:middle line:84% a task that asked jurors to read somewhere around 300 books 00:00:39.880 --> 00:00:42.520 align:middle line:90% of poetry published in the year. 00:00:42.520 --> 00:00:44.830 align:middle line:84% It's a daunting task, particularly 00:00:44.830 --> 00:00:46.660 align:middle line:84% with so much remarkable poetry that's 00:00:46.660 --> 00:00:48.850 align:middle line:90% being written in the nation. 00:00:48.850 --> 00:00:54.340 align:middle line:84% One begins to get a bit numb and impervious to so much language. 00:00:54.340 --> 00:00:58.630 align:middle line:84% But when I came to Shockley's semiautomatic, 00:00:58.630 --> 00:01:02.680 align:middle line:84% I was left breathless not with exhaustion, 00:01:02.680 --> 00:01:08.140 align:middle line:84% but with exhilaration of the presence of her mind and music. 00:01:08.140 --> 00:01:11.050 align:middle line:84% I was swept in by the spirit of linguistic play 00:01:11.050 --> 00:01:13.750 align:middle line:84% and formal intelligence as the poet 00:01:13.750 --> 00:01:16.720 align:middle line:84% takes on the most difficult aspects 00:01:16.720 --> 00:01:19.780 align:middle line:90% of our societal malaise-- 00:01:19.780 --> 00:01:24.430 align:middle line:84% violence against Black boys unjustly slain and, hence, 00:01:24.430 --> 00:01:27.610 align:middle line:84% emotional violence on the Black family, 00:01:27.610 --> 00:01:30.460 align:middle line:84% the rapes of Black lesbians in South Africa, 00:01:30.460 --> 00:01:33.580 align:middle line:84% violence against the planet, violence against the poor; 00:01:33.580 --> 00:01:38.590 align:middle line:84% all the challenges we face in creating a livable world. 00:01:38.590 --> 00:01:43.420 align:middle line:84% In her work, semiautomatic sure is a gun, 00:01:43.420 --> 00:01:46.840 align:middle line:84% but also is a trope for the violence 00:01:46.840 --> 00:01:53.860 align:middle line:84% itself which repeats and repeats with semiautomatic frequency. 00:01:53.860 --> 00:01:56.200 align:middle line:84% The way her poems play with language and form 00:01:56.200 --> 00:01:58.120 align:middle line:84% is itself a kind of transcendence 00:01:58.120 --> 00:02:01.070 align:middle line:84% of what constrains us, as if to say, hey, 00:02:01.070 --> 00:02:02.950 align:middle line:90% we've got the tools here. 00:02:02.950 --> 00:02:06.670 align:middle line:84% Do not give in to numbness and despair. 00:02:06.670 --> 00:02:07.720 align:middle line:90% "I know, I know. 00:02:07.720 --> 00:02:10.990 align:middle line:84% We are all exhausted by political despair." 00:02:10.990 --> 00:02:15.310 align:middle line:84% Shockley invites Fred Moten's words as epigraph. 00:02:15.310 --> 00:02:18.220 align:middle line:84% "Have you ever suffered from political despair, 00:02:18.220 --> 00:02:21.280 align:middle line:84% from despair about the organization of things? 00:02:21.280 --> 00:02:24.550 align:middle line:84% What does it mean to suffer from political despair 00:02:24.550 --> 00:02:28.780 align:middle line:84% when your identity is bound up with utopian political 00:02:28.780 --> 00:02:31.600 align:middle line:90% aspirations and desires?" 00:02:31.600 --> 00:02:35.830 align:middle line:84% Shockley's work is about how one may renew language 00:02:35.830 --> 00:02:37.720 align:middle line:90% to serve this task. 00:02:37.720 --> 00:02:41.200 align:middle line:84% She writes, "Language struck me as wooden, battered. 00:02:41.200 --> 00:02:44.920 align:middle line:84% Words became weeds, meaning I couldn't see any use for them. 00:02:44.920 --> 00:02:49.240 align:middle line:84% I had signed my name repeatedly without any sign of change. 00:02:49.240 --> 00:02:54.070 align:middle line:84% I was still bleeding from yesterday's sound bites." 00:02:54.070 --> 00:02:57.670 align:middle line:84% Her poems offer a wealth of imaginative invention, 00:02:57.670 --> 00:03:01.240 align:middle line:84% taking inspiration from the blues, a quiz, remix, collage, 00:03:01.240 --> 00:03:03.085 align:middle line:84% Odysseus, Descartes, Rihanna, Prince. 00:03:03.085 --> 00:03:07.780 align:middle line:84% [LAUGHS] Collage texts, one of the most profound kind 00:03:07.780 --> 00:03:13.270 align:middle line:84% of collage mixes I've seen, dealing with sex trafficking, 00:03:13.270 --> 00:03:16.750 align:middle line:84% bringing together texts from both Harriet Jacobs' 00:03:16.750 --> 00:03:20.620 align:middle line:84% historical texts, from Harriet Jacobs' work 00:03:20.620 --> 00:03:23.650 align:middle line:84% on her documentation of the life of a slave girl, 00:03:23.650 --> 00:03:27.790 align:middle line:84% and contemporary reporting by Yamiche Alcindor. 00:03:27.790 --> 00:03:30.710 align:middle line:84% She liberates the character Topsy from Uncle Tom's Cabin. 00:03:30.710 --> 00:03:34.570 align:middle line:84% She calibrates her complaints in percussive sound. 00:03:34.570 --> 00:03:42.550 align:middle line:84% "What art, pray, shall patch tracts war ransacks?" 00:03:42.550 --> 00:03:44.830 align:middle line:84% She writes about the Fukushima disaster, taking, 00:03:44.830 --> 00:03:46.900 align:middle line:84% I'm convinced, formal inspiration 00:03:46.900 --> 00:03:50.380 align:middle line:84% from the form of nuclear fuel rods. 00:03:50.380 --> 00:03:53.680 align:middle line:84% She deconstructs political and gender norms. 00:03:53.680 --> 00:03:56.120 align:middle line:84% "There's been a separation of church and state, 00:03:56.120 --> 00:04:00.670 align:middle line:84% but perhaps it's time for a formal divorce." 00:04:00.670 --> 00:04:03.190 align:middle line:90% And yes, Shockley has the tools. 00:04:03.190 --> 00:04:05.950 align:middle line:84% She's the author of four other books of poetry, 00:04:05.950 --> 00:04:09.100 align:middle line:84% as well as a scholarly book on 20th century African American 00:04:09.100 --> 00:04:10.100 align:middle line:90% literature. 00:04:10.100 --> 00:04:14.170 align:middle line:84% Her poetry book, The New Black, won the 2012 Hurston/Wright 00:04:14.170 --> 00:04:15.550 align:middle line:90% Legacy Award. 00:04:15.550 --> 00:04:18.640 align:middle line:84% She was a finalist for last year's Pulitzer Prize 00:04:18.640 --> 00:04:21.130 align:middle line:90% in Poetry, one of three. 00:04:21.130 --> 00:04:23.170 align:middle line:84% She received a BA at Northwestern, 00:04:23.170 --> 00:04:27.250 align:middle line:84% a JD from the University of Michigan, a PhD in English 00:04:27.250 --> 00:04:28.990 align:middle line:90% from Duke. 00:04:28.990 --> 00:04:32.290 align:middle line:84% She's currently working on a long poem, as I understand it, 00:04:32.290 --> 00:04:36.310 align:middle line:84% that considers near environmental apocalypse 00:04:36.310 --> 00:04:40.150 align:middle line:84% and what that means to us in terms of remaining human 00:04:40.150 --> 00:04:42.280 align:middle line:90% in such times. 00:04:42.280 --> 00:04:46.240 align:middle line:84% Most admirable for all of the gravity in her work 00:04:46.240 --> 00:04:52.150 align:middle line:84% Is that Shockley remains bound by Moten's sense of identity 00:04:52.150 --> 00:04:56.630 align:middle line:84% bound up with utopian political aspirations and desires. 00:04:56.630 --> 00:05:02.770 align:middle line:84% She writes, "I'm going to wash my mouth out with hope." 00:05:02.770 --> 00:05:04.840 align:middle line:90% Please welcome Evie Shockley. 00:05:04.840 --> 00:05:05.836 align:middle line:90% Woo! 00:05:05.836 --> 00:05:09.322 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:05:09.322 --> 00:05:17.630 align:middle line:90% 00:05:17.630 --> 00:05:22.130 align:middle line:84% Alison, that is the worst possible introduction. 00:05:22.130 --> 00:05:25.088 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:05:25.088 --> 00:05:26.570 align:middle line:90% Sorry. 00:05:26.570 --> 00:05:29.540 align:middle line:84% I can't live up to it, and I'm not even reading the work 00:05:29.540 --> 00:05:32.180 align:middle line:90% that she's talking about, so-- 00:05:32.180 --> 00:05:32.960 align:middle line:90% but thank you. 00:05:32.960 --> 00:05:34.850 align:middle line:90% I'm super grateful. 00:05:34.850 --> 00:05:39.527 align:middle line:84% I'm so amazingly grateful to Diana and to Tyler. 00:05:39.527 --> 00:05:40.860 align:middle line:90% I don't know where everybody is. 00:05:40.860 --> 00:05:42.140 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:05:42.140 --> 00:05:48.140 align:middle line:84% And all of the people at the Poetry Center, 00:05:48.140 --> 00:05:51.530 align:middle line:84% all of the people at the center that we visited this morning-- 00:05:51.530 --> 00:05:52.640 align:middle line:90% tell me the name of it? 00:05:52.640 --> 00:05:53.570 align:middle line:90% It's CAPE. 00:05:53.570 --> 00:05:54.380 align:middle line:90% Escape. 00:05:54.380 --> 00:05:55.260 align:middle line:90% CAPE, C-A-P-E. 00:05:55.260 --> 00:05:55.935 align:middle line:90% CAPE. 00:05:55.935 --> 00:05:56.435 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:05:56.435 --> 00:05:58.760 align:middle line:90% CAPE. 00:05:58.760 --> 00:06:05.930 align:middle line:84% Just students who brought their whole selves to a room 00:06:05.930 --> 00:06:11.030 align:middle line:84% to meet with two strangers who wanted 00:06:11.030 --> 00:06:16.070 align:middle line:84% to talk about poetry with them and to talk about a life 00:06:16.070 --> 00:06:18.740 align:middle line:84% and how poetry can be a part of one 00:06:18.740 --> 00:06:25.940 align:middle line:84% and reflect on one or all of ours, 00:06:25.940 --> 00:06:29.270 align:middle line:84% so I was really grateful for the opportunity 00:06:29.270 --> 00:06:30.935 align:middle line:90% and very glad to be here. 00:06:30.935 --> 00:06:33.870 align:middle line:90% 00:06:33.870 --> 00:06:40.400 align:middle line:84% I am extremely nervous because I am reading 00:06:40.400 --> 00:06:45.560 align:middle line:84% an entire body of work, none of which I've read before, 00:06:45.560 --> 00:06:56.030 align:middle line:84% by request and work on a subject that I have thought 00:06:56.030 --> 00:07:00.080 align:middle line:84% about a lot over the years and thought I knew something 00:07:00.080 --> 00:07:03.590 align:middle line:84% about when I accepted this commission, 00:07:03.590 --> 00:07:08.552 align:middle line:84% and now I understand that I know nothing. 00:07:08.552 --> 00:07:10.010 align:middle line:84% And I still have to read the poems. 00:07:10.010 --> 00:07:13.790 align:middle line:90% 00:07:13.790 --> 00:07:19.460 align:middle line:84% I'm also nervous because I am from that crew of people 00:07:19.460 --> 00:07:24.560 align:middle line:84% whose sense of feminism was formed by bell hooks, 00:07:24.560 --> 00:07:25.370 align:middle line:90% and she's here. 00:07:25.370 --> 00:07:27.605 align:middle line:90% So OK, I'm done. 00:07:27.605 --> 00:07:33.560 align:middle line:84% I am now going to read from a portfolio 00:07:33.560 --> 00:07:39.710 align:middle line:84% that I have started calling Prison Prism. 00:07:39.710 --> 00:07:43.805 align:middle line:84% And we will see how far I can get. 00:07:43.805 --> 00:07:46.910 align:middle line:90% 00:07:46.910 --> 00:07:49.340 align:middle line:90% This first poem is called-- 00:07:49.340 --> 00:07:52.220 align:middle line:84% oh, wait, before anything else, I want to also thank the-- 00:07:52.220 --> 00:07:58.490 align:middle line:84% Erin and Yola for opening the space with 00:07:58.490 --> 00:08:02.390 align:middle line:90% poems that these will not match. 00:08:02.390 --> 00:08:05.060 align:middle line:84% These are in a different space and mode, 00:08:05.060 --> 00:08:09.020 align:middle line:84% but the room is going to be gentler to them 00:08:09.020 --> 00:08:12.430 align:middle line:84% because you all read, so thank you.