{"id":3508,"date":"2017-11-03T21:05:39","date_gmt":"2017-11-03T21:05:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.suzannechurchill.com\/eng394-f17\/?p=3508"},"modified":"2017-11-03T21:06:26","modified_gmt":"2017-11-03T21:06:26","slug":"lit-review-evie-shockley-by-grady-abbey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.suzannechurchill.com\/eng394-f17\/2017\/11\/03\/lit-review-evie-shockley-by-grady-abbey\/","title":{"rendered":"Lit Review, Evie Shockley by Grady &amp; Abbey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Grady Pearson and Abbey Corcoran<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dr. Churchill<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">English 394<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">November 3, 2017<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Secondary Source Reports: <\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>MLA Citation:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Booze, Elizabeth. \u201c<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">by Evie Shockley.\u201d <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Hollins Critic. <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Volume 52, Number 3, June 2015. pp. 18-19.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Thesis: \u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cWhile the collection has been called a powerful reimagining of blackness in America, I would instead label it a call to think of blackness more broadly and complexly\u201d (Booze 18).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cWhile <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">does not offer a singular re-definition of blackness, it knowingly and thoughtfully speaks up into ongoing conversation around the black American identity, and pokes and prods at our conceptions of not only race, but also place, womanhood, institutions and corporations\u201d (Booze 18). \u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Paraphrase:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Though her piece is a short one, Booze posits a complex and multi-pronged thesis in which she asserts that Evie Shockley\u2019s new collection of poetry <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> does not provide readers with one new conception of blackness but, rather, seeks criticize the singularity of our current conception of blackness and to expand how we think of it, especially in relation to other identities and \u201cthe state of the racial landscape\u201d (18).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Structural Outline:<\/b><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Booze begins with a short section that <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">introduces Shockley and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black<\/span><\/i> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">as the focus of her piece.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thesis<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">: <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cWhile the collection has been called a powerful reimagining of blackness in America, I would instead label it a call think of blackness more broadly and complexly\u201d (18).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The section directly following the thesis <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">offers some preliminary evidence<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which Booze provides vis-\u00e0-vis a <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">close reading<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> of one of Shockley\u2019s poem \u201cgetting around utopia\u201d, which\u2014she argues\u2014represents the \u201cdisillusionment that characterizes the book\u201d, perhaps a disillusionment the narrow conception of blackness Booze argues Shockley takes on (18).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Following the close reading, Booze <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">posits the second half of her thesis<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, arguing that <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black \u201c<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">thoughtfully speaks up into ongoing conversation around the black American identity, and pokes and prods at our conceptions of not only race, but also place, womanhood, institutions and corporations\u201d (18). \u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Booze <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">summarizes<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> the themes and forms of Shockley\u2019s poetics in the collection to illustrate how Shockley\u2019s work questions contemporary systems by reimagining \u201cthe voices and lives of submerged people and places\u201d (18).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Finally, Booze <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">analyzes<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> the poem \u201cdependencies\u201d to illustrate Shockley\u2019s use of these submerged voices (Thomas Jefferson\u2019s \u201cdependents\u201d) and her critique of American systems that perpetuate inequality through her inclusion of lines from the Declaration of Independence. \u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The work <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">concludes<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> with Booze\u2019s review-esque call to read <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">if the reader is \u00a0looking for a \u201cmasterful exploration of what we talk about when we talk about race, place, and womanhood\u201d (19).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><b>Rhetorical Strategies:<\/b><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Often, as writing gets more complex, so do the theses. I like the way Booze splits her thesis and releases it in parts (in the 1<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">st<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and 2<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">nd<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> paragraphs). I think this would be a successful strategy for a longer literary criticism where the argument builds on earlier paragraphs and close readings.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I really like the phrase \u201csubmerged people and places\u201d and, I think it is a linguistically beautiful way to talk about silenced narratives, especially narratives surrounding African American identity and the importance of the ocean and the middle passage (Booze 18).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Although Booze\u2019s summary in section five is an effective way to introduce the reader to the themes and questions that drive Shockley\u2019s work, it would be even more effective couples with particular reads on some of Shockley\u2019s poems. In my own essays, I would back up instances of summary with textual evidence.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><b>MLA Citation:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Vrana, Laura. &#8220;\u2018SOUNDTRACK FOR A GENERATIONAL SHIFT\u2019: Music &amp; Innovation in Evie Shockley&#8217;s the New<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Black<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.&#8221; Obsidian 41.1 (2015). ProQuest. Web. 28 Oct.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Thesis: \u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201c<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, through formal innovation, unravels assumptions about authentic Black poetry being influenced by Black music and orality [\u2026] the text advocates for plural, multitudinous Black poetics\u201d (1).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201c\u2026arguing for a murky definition of blackness\u2026\u201d (3).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201c\u2026highlighting the importance of writing histories that center on women rather than always foregrounding male figures or heterosexual love\u201d (4).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Paraphrase:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Vrana argues that Shockley\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">reimagines blackness as murkier, broader, defined by more than Black orality and music and, more accessible to and shaped by Black women poets than it has been considered in the past. Vrana also claims that presence of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">indicates that we should anticipate more Black women poets like Shockley will be perpetuating this new blackness in the future.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Structural Outline:<\/b><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vrana starts her critical essay off <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">with a hook, in the form of an epigraph<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">: \u201c[W]e must be willing to look beyond the \u2018recognizably black\u2019 in search of black aesthetics\u201d which she cites as a quote from Evie Shockley herself. \u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the second section, Vrana <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">defines key terms<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u2014such as \u201cson-nots\u201d which \u201clook like sonnets but they\u2019re not\u201d and are often preset in Shockley\u2019s work.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the third section, she engages in a <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">close reading<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> of one of Shockley\u2019s poems from <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">(\u201cmy last modernist poem, #4 (or, re-re-birth of a nation)\u201d). In this section, Vrana <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">uses her analyses to argue<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that Shockley\u2019s use of allusions and repetition in \u201cmy last modernist poem\u201d demonstrates \u201cthe inevitable repetitiveness with which the racialized discourses reappear throughout American History\u201d (1).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">After the close reading, Vrana posits her <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">thesis<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Following her thesis, Vrana <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">provides a roadmap<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> for the remainder of the essay saying, \u201cI argue first through close attention to several poems that Shockley\u2019s adaptation of music constitutes a vital change to the authenticity discourses that still haunt black poetry criticism\u201d and \u201c[s]econd I argue that Shockley\u2019s practices deserve our attention\u201d to further the definition of innovation in the field of Black poetry (1-2).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the ensuing paragraphs, Vrana <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">summarizes theory<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> from Shockley\u2019s critical text <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Renegade Poetics.<\/span><\/i><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vrana goes on to <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">close read<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> four of Shockley\u2019s poems, \u201cbop for presidential politics\u201d, \u201csoundtrack for a generational shift\u201d, \u201cx-marks the spot\u201d, and \u201cmesostics from the american grammar book\u201d and \u00a0\u00a0using each poem to further her argument that Shockley\u2019s new black goes beyond Black music and orality and masculinity in its engagement of black aesthetics.<\/span>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In her analysis of \u201cx marks the spot\u201d Vrana uses Cindy Lyles\u2019s <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">theory<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> on the layout of the poem to further her argument.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vrana <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">concludes<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> by summing up her argument and by stating that innovation in the black poetic tradition is not a new development but, could be reimagined to be a broader \u201cstrategy\u201d for African American writers (6).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><b>Rhetorical Strategies:<\/b><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I like how she started out with a close reading of \u201cmy last modernist poem\u201d before positing her thesis. It really framed her argument and, by the time she had stated her thesis I, as a reader, was already on the same page with her regarding what she was going to be looking at and arguing.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vrana\u2019s argument is very convincing, in part because of the amount of textual analysis she does. Each different poem she analyses lends itself to a different part of her argument, which is something I would definitely like to replicate in an English essay. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Something that I always struggle with in essays where I employ a theoretical lens is how and when to introduce my theory. I always tend to posit it in my introduction, which clutters up my reader\u2019s access point. Vrana, in her use of Cindy Lyles\u2019s theory, does not introduce it until the point of her essay where she uses it, which is something I could use in the future in a critical or historical essay. \u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>MLA Citation: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thorsson, Courtney. \u201cFoodways in Contemporary African American Poetry: Harryette Mullen and Evie Shockley.\u201d <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Contemporary Literature<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, vol. 57, no. 2, 2016, pp. 184\u2013215., doi:10.3368\/cl.57.2.184.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Thesis: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cFoodways\u2014ways of doing culinary work and routes that foodstuffs travel\u2014are a tool for formal innovation and thematic exploration of identity in African American literature from its beginnings to the present. In their poetry of the past few decades, Harryette Mullen and Evie Shockley use the recipe form and culinary discourse to write vernacular poetry without relying on the formal innovations of their predecessors\u201d (Thorsson 184).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Paraphrase: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Examining the ways African American writers represent food in literature presents a useful study of how food has shaped historical and present conceptions of black identity. Harryette Mullen and Evie Shockley adopt the conventions of these \u201cfoodways\u201d in their poetry, interacting with the historical legacy of black culinary culture while forging wholly new innovations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Structural Outline: <\/b><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thorsson traces Mullen and Shockley\u2019s innovative use of foodways that differentiate them from the conventions of their predecessors. Her thesis supports Erica R. Edwards\u2019 claim that twenty-first century African American writers simultaneously connect to and distinguish themselves from previous cultural traditions. Mullen and Shockley share the use of foodways, drawing upon the language and practices of a larger tradition, while distinguishing themselves by allowing the forms of their poems to differ greatly while questioning previous notions of singular blackness. While both poets use the recipe form in their work, invoking a wealth of cultural markers and practices attributed to notions of a coherent black identity, while employing formal innovations and voicing critiques that complicate and criticize those notions of uniformity.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thorsson next cites Shockley\u2019s 2011 critical work <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Renegade Poetics: Black Aesthetics and Formal Innovation in African American Poetry<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which outlines \u201ca plural, lowercase \u201cblack aesthetics\u201d\u201d unmoored from a singular, prescriptive black identity (185). \u201cCulinary language and the recipe form\u201d both illustrate one of the infinite routes of black expression (185).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In introducing Harryette Mullen\u2019s work, Thorsson references Allison Cumming\u2019s argument from her 2005 article, \u201cPublic Subjects: Race and the Critical Reception of Gwendolyn Brooks, Erica Hunt, and Harryette Mullen.\u201d Cumming claims that Mullen\u2019s works display a progression from a unified black voice to a fragmented subject to a collection of cultural voices. Thorsson challenges Cumming, arguing that Mullen\u2019s use of foodways throughout her work indicate she remains anchored in an African American vernacular tradition even as she embarks on unconventional innovations.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Shockley\u2019s use of foodways focuses on the pivotal role of African American identity, \u201cespecially black labor\u201d in the history of the United States, distinguishing her work from Mullen\u2019s (204). Thorsson examines poems from Shockley\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A half-red sea <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">to trace these connections, ultimately finding that foodways \u201coscillate between national identity and personal experience\u201d in Shockley\u2019s poetry, illustrating Shockley\u2019s concept of a \u201ccomplicated and multiple blackness\u201d (212).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>MLA Citation: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Collins, Martha. \u201c<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Evie Shockley.\u201d <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">FIELD: Contemporary Poetry and Poetics,<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Spring 2012.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Thesis: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201c\u2026some African American poets themselves have recently looked back and shown us that much African American <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">experimental<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> poetry is in fact <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">rooted <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">in the use and subversion of form.\u201d \u201cShockley\u2019s own new book of poems exemplifies this fusion of the formal and innovative\u2026<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">includes love poetry and poems in narrative and epistolary modes that provide accessible moments of relief against the more demanding work\u201d (\u201c<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black, <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Evie Shockley\u201d).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Paraphrase: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Evie Shockley\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">is emblematic of the subversive tradition of African American experimental poetry, presenting poetic conventions both in accepted forms and innovative reversals.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Structural Outline:<\/b><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Martha Collins introduces her review of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">by contextualizing it in a space between traditional forms of poetry adopted by black writers and \u201ca less-noticed but equally important flowering of innovative African American poetry\u201d (\u201c<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black, <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Evie Shockley\u201d). Shockley\u2019s work exists in between these camps, relying on the vocabularies and structures of traditional poetry while embracing the \u201csubversion of form\u201d that characterizes the work of African American writers of experimental poetry.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Collins creates an inventory of the traditional forms Shockley adopts in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, including \u201cthree rhymed sonnets and fourteen unrhymed ones\u2026 a sequence of haiku, two ghazals, a poem in rhymed quatrains, and a sestina\u2026\u201d as well as poems using mesostics, acrostics, and other literary structures. \u201cBut even when she\u2019s using these forms,\u201d Collins argues, \u201c\u2013 or perhaps <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">especially <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">when she\u2019s using them \u2013 Shockley is subverting them in ways that make them among the book\u2019s most stunningly innovative and deeply challenging forms\u201d (\u201c<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black, <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Evie Shockley\u201d).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Drawing on several examples including the word collage sestina \u201cclare\u2019s song\u201d and the \u201crecently invented\u201d gigan \u201ccelestial,\u201d Collins identifies the influence of \u201cword work\u201d and \u201cmental energy,\u201d two experimental strategies that give Shockley\u2019s poetry its sense of subversive innovation. \u201cWord work\u201d describes the text\u2019s \u201cplayful\u2026 language-driven moves\u201d that impart a flowing seamlessness between subjects. The \u201cexpenditure of mental energy\u201d present in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u2019s more challenging features is a technique suppressing \u201cthe tenor of a metaphor altogether,\u201d characterizing the obscure \u201cdear white xmas\u201d and \u201cmy life.\u201d As abstract as these examples may be, they retain \u201creferences past and present\u201d and unite the speaker\u2019s life \u201cand the life of a people,\u201d demonstrating Shockley\u2019s conception of multifaceted, interconnected but not monolithic black aesthetics (\u201c<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black, <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Evie Shockley\u201d). \u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Literature Review: <\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In her 2011 book <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Renegade Poetics: Black Aesthetics and Formal Innovation in African American Poetry<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Evie Shockley calls for renewed \u201cblack aesthetics,\u201d resisting essentialist conception of blackness established by the formative, but monolithic Black Arts Movement. Shockley\u2019s \u201cblack aesthetics\u201d embraces the diverse range of expression available to black writers, celebrating plurality and rejecting the prescriptive notion of the transcendent black soul. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Renegade Poetics <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">invites black artists to define their identity themselves rather than conforming to an essentialist model.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">If <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Renegade Poetics<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is the theoretical foundation of Shockley\u2019s black aesthetics, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">puts that theory into practice. Sweeping and historical while simultaneously personal, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">portrays individuals ranging from Jefferson\u2019s cook James Hemings, to Ella Fitzgerald, to a pensive speaker rectifying childhood nostalgia for the South with its history of oppression. While Shockley\u2019s poems draw from a shared historical and cultural vocabulary, none prescribe a fixed, universal blackness, rather embracing each subject as a distinct identity with varying means of agency and self-expression. Published in 2011, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">has not had long to become the subject of criticism and analysis. Nevertheless, the analysis that is available is diverse, centering around Shockley\u2019s varying adherence to poetic forms, her experimental innovations, and her portrayal of blackness as either disparate or offering collective identity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The poems of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">are as diverse as their subjects, some relying on conventional forms such as the sestina and haiku, while others are dense chunks of text or jumbled, non-aligned polyvocal discourses between three or four speakers. This plurality of poetic forms has inspired several critics to question whether Shockley adheres to or resists conventional forms. In \u201cBlack Women Poets by the Numbers: Evie Shockley and Allison Joseph,\u201d Briana Whiteside argues Shockley\u2019s poems are primarily innovative. While she claims that \u201cShockley\u2019s use of person aligns her with large numbers of past and contemporary poets,\u201d she also emphasizes the visual innovations of Shockley\u2019s poems, distinguishing them from the works of other poets she analyzes (67). These illustrative designs offer a unique \u201calternative to reading standard poetry in verse and meter\u201d (62). Whiteside describes Shockley as an innovative poet, but she does not deny her place within a larger context of poets of color experimenting with form. While the designs of Shockley\u2019s poems \u201cposition her within a larger network of writers\u201d who also experiment with form, Whiteside argues the poems are fundamentally \u201cnonconventional\u201d and \u201cchallenge readers to analyze\u2026 appearance\u201d as well as words (70).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Courtney Thorsson\u2019s 2016 article \u201cFoodways in Contemporary African Poetry: Harryette Mullen and Evie Shockley\u201d traces how black authors generate formal innovations and portray identity through foodways, or \u201cways of doing culinary work and routes that foodstuffs travel\u201d (184). Thorsson\u2019s argument casts Shockley\u2019s work as experimental as well as a fusion of the formal and the innovative. She begins by arguing Shockley and Mullen adopt conventions from \u201crecipe form and culinary discourse\u201d in their poetry \u201cwithout relying on the formal innovations of their predecessors\u201d (184). Thorsson and Whiteside agree that Shockley\u2019s work distinguishes her from previous traditions, yet Thorsson does more to connect Shockley with other poets than Whiteside, who only concedes that Shockley shares similarities with other experimental poets. As Thorsson examines Mullen and Shockley\u2019s poetry, she identifies examples of \u201cculinary and recipe form\u201d that present an intersection of the conventional and the experimental (185). Thorsson concludes that it is Shockley\u2019s notion of \u201ccomplicated and multiple blackness\u201d that makes her work innovative, communicated through established forms, yet presented in new ways (212).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In her analysis of Shockley\u2019s \u201cwhere are you planted\u201d for Emerson College\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ploughshares<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> blog, Ariel Katz accepts <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> as a fusion of the formal and innovative. The poem engages the complexities of southern nostalgia, casting trees as emblematic of both the refuge of home and centuries of lynching and oppression. Tracing the poem\u2019s connections to Billie Holiday\u2019s \u201cStrange Fruit,\u201d Katz argues the poem \u201cmingles measured nostalgia for southern trees with the violence of the history they stood through,\u201d a suspicious, conflicted embrace of one\u2019s roots emblematic of Bowers\u2019 \u201cFor the South\u201d as well (<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ploughshares<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">). Katz concludes that \u201cwhere are you planted\u201d adopts a traditional literary form \u2013 a lullaby \u2013 and gives it a complexity beyond its original form.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Martha Collins makes the most explicit case for <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">as a blend of form and experimentation in her review appearing in the spring 2012 issue of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">FIELD: Contemporary Poetry and Poetics<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. She argues Shockley\u2019s poetry resides in the tradition of equal \u201cuse and subversion of form\u201d that characterizes much of \u201cAfrican American experimental poetry\u201d (\u201c<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Evie Shockley\u201d). Refusing to force <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">into a single category, Collins accepts the work as a blend of traditional and experimental poetic forms, some which reflect convention and others which defy classification.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Shockley herself has challenged the frequent distinction within academic and literary circles between experimental work and work that portrays identity expression. In \u201cLoaded Terms,\u201d a 2012 piece for the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Boston Review<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Shockley communicates the danger of dividing poetry into dichotomies which discourage expansive vision. As her poetic work illustrates, she aims to erase boundaries and distinctions that dictate poets of color are not suitably experimental simply because they write about their expressions of race, gender, and other aspects of identity. She calls on other poets to resist re-institution of the \u201cwide-reaching binaries that have structured \u201cWestern thought\u201d for thousands of years\u201d (<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Boston Review<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just as critics have debated innovation in Shockley\u2019s poetry, recent criticism focusing on Shockley\u2019s newest collection, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, interrogates and debates whether Shockley\u2019s collection actually does imagine a new black or, in other words, a new conception of blackness. Elizabeth Booze was the first to write on this topic in her 2015 review in the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hollins Critic. <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In her article, Booze argues that Evie Shockley\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> does not provide readers with one new conception of blackness but, rather, seeks to criticize the singularity of our current conception and conceive of it \u201cmore broadly and complexly\u201d in the future, while still keeping it within the bounds of the current paradigm of blackness (Booze 18). Booze bases this argument on Shockley\u2019s placement of blackness in conversation with \u201cplace, womanhood, institutions, and corporations\u201d in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">poems like \u201cdependencies<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201d and \u201cthe cold\u201d, which she claims illustrates that <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">does not represent a <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cre-imagination of blackness in America\u201d but, rather, an expansion of blackness to include ideas like those of place and womanhood (18).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Articles by Laura Vrana (2015) and Thomas Fink take oppose Booze\u2019s argument and posit that Shockley\u2019s volume does reimagine blackness, or at least anticipates a coming reimagining. \u00a0\u00a0In \u201c\u2018SOUNDTRACK FOR A GENERATIONAL SHIFT\u2019: Music &amp; Innovation in Evie Shockley\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201d Vrana argues that <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">reimagines blackness as murkier, broader, defined by more than Black orality and music and as more accessible to and shaped by Black women poets than it has been considered in the past. Vrana close reads several of Shockley\u2019s poems to show how they conceive of womanhood and orality differently from traditional how conceptions of blackness do. For example, Vrana uses Shockley\u2019s \u201csoundtrack for a generational shift\u201d to support her argument that, \u201c[t]o expand definitions of the innovative in Black poetics that incorporate only certain varieties of musically influences works, Shockley uses some of her wildly visually experimental pieces that do not explicitly incorporate musicality to deal with themes and concerns typically expected of musically innovative Black poems\u201d (3). Although much more focused on the \u201cnarrative and imagistic (at times ekphrastic)\u201d strategies Shockley employs to depict racial and sociopolitical identity, Thomas Fink\u2014in his review of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black\u2014<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">aligns himself with Vrana when he writes in his conclusion that Shockley\u2019s work may anticipate a \u201c\u2018new black\u2019 concept to be realized in the future\u2014with luck, the near future\u201d (Fink 45; Fink 49).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">An overarching theme or \u201ccritical camp\u201d throughout the literature on Shockley\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which transcends the debate about reimagining blackness,<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">is an interest in how Shockley portrays historical and\/or iconic Black figures in her poetry. Fink, for example, describes how Obama, in Shockley\u2019s \u201cmy last modernist poem #4 (or, re-re-birth of a nation)\u201d is \u201ca signifier: \u2018a clean-cut man brings a brown blackness \/ to a dream-carved, unprecedented \/ place. some see in this the end of race\u201d (46). Fink identifies Obama a symbol or even a synecdoche \u201cto answer those who ascribe such gigantic significance to the 2008 election\u201d (46). Further, Fink argues that Shockley\u2019s representation of Obama; \u201cre-emphasizes both social construction and individual agency,\u201d inviting reflection upon \u201cthe current power structure\u201d (48). Vrana also mentions how in Shockley\u2019s \u201c(mis)takes one to know one\u201d the imagined conversation between Frederick Douglass and Barack Obama highlights \u201cthe collection\u2019s investment in engaging the present with historical context\u201d (2). A third critic, Howard Rambsy III, also engages in a discussion of Shockley\u2019s portrayal of these figures in his essay on Shockley\u2019s use of persona poetry in her poem \u201cfrom the lost letters of Frederick Douglas\u201d. Rambsy argues that Shockley\u2019s poem differs from typical heroic narratives and instances of persona poetry because it \u201cpresents Douglas in a different phase of his life\u201d (553). In Shockley\u2019s poem, Douglas speaks\u2014post-bondage\u2014to his daughter and tries to explain his intimate relationship with a white woman. Of this, Rambsy writes, \u201cShockley makes the ex-slave a far more vulnerable\u2014and arguably more complex\u2014figure than he is typically portrayed in verse [\u2026] Shockley utilizes the persona poem to simultaneously demythologize and diversify views of Douglass&#8217;s life\u201d (554). \u00a0The significance of this debate regarding the iconic figures is in the fact that it serves as a microcosm for the discussion regarding Shockley\u2019s work. \u00a0In this critical conversation, Shockley\u2019s representations of Obama and Douglas embody or are critically endowed three very separate meanings but, each one is still connected to blackness, poetics, and\/or identity. Thus, Shockley\u2019s portrayal of these figures and the critical discourse that comes out of that portrayal is emblematic of the debates happening in critical works on Shockley\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">: they differ widely (and there is little chance of reconciliation) but, eventually they all return to the notions of black aesthetics and poetics. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Works Cited: <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Booze, Elizabeth. \u201c<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">by Evie Shockley.\u201d <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Hollins Critic. <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Volume 52, Number 3, June <\/span><\/p>\n<ol start=\"2015\">\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> pp. 18-19.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Collins, Martha. \u201c<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the new black<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Evie Shockley.\u201d <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">FIELD: Contemporary Poetry and Poetics<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Spring <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">2012.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fink, Thomas. \u201cQuestioning Modes of Renewal and Reconstruction: Evie Shockley\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The New Black<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Denver Quarterly. <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Volume 46. Number 4.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">pp. 45-49.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Katz, Ariel. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sinister Trees and Fragrant<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Flowers. The <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ploughshares<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Blog, Emerson College. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">http:\/\/blog.pshares.org\/index.php\/old-southnew-south-sinister-trees-and-fragrant-flowers\/. Accessed 17 Oct. 2017.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rambsy, II, Howard. \u201cCatching Holy Ghosts: The Diverse Manifestations of Black Persona Poetry.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">African American Review<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, vol. 42, no. 38.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Shockley, Evie. \u201cLoaded Terms.\u201d <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Boston Review. <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">6 December 2012.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Shockley, Evie.<\/span> <i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Renegade Poetics: Black Aesthetics and Formal Innovation in African American <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Poetry<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Iowa City, University of Iowa Press, 2011<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Shockley, Evie. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The New Black<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Middletown, Wesleyan University Press, 2012. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Project Muse<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">https:\/\/muse.jhu.edu\/book\/13559\/.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thorsson, Courtney. \u201cFoodways in Contemporary African American Poetry: Harryette Mullen and Evie<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Shockley.\u201d <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Contemporary Literature<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, vol. 57, no. 2, 2016, pp. 184\u2013215., doi:10.3368\/cl.57.2.184.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vrana, Laura. &#8220;&#8221;SOUNDTRACK FOR A GENERATIONAL SHIFT&#8221;: Music &amp; Innovation in Evie <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Shockley&#8217;s the New Black.&#8221; Obsidian 41.1 (2015). ProQuest. Web. 28 Oct.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Whiteside, Briana. \u201cBlack Women Poets by the Numbers: Evie Shockley and Allison Joseph.\u201d <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Journal <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">of Ethnic American Literature<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, vol. 4, 2014, pp. 61\u201374. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Grady Pearson and Abbey Corcoran Dr. Churchill English 394 November 3, 2017 &nbsp; Secondary Source Reports: MLA Citation: Booze, Elizabeth. \u201cthe new black by Evie Shockley.\u201d The Hollins Critic. Volume 52, Number 3, June 2015. pp. 18-19. Thesis:&#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/courses.suzannechurchill.com\/eng394-f17\/2017\/11\/03\/lit-review-evie-shockley-by-grady-abbey\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":191,"featured_media":3510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ag-lit-rev"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/courses.suzannechurchill.com\/eng394-f17\/files\/2017\/11\/Shockley_Eviec-Stephane-Robolin.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.suzannechurchill.com\/eng394-f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.suzannechurchill.com\/eng394-f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.suzannechurchill.com\/eng394-f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.suzannechurchill.com\/eng394-f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/191"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.suzannechurchill.com\/eng394-f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3508"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.suzannechurchill.com\/eng394-f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3511,"href":"https:\/\/courses.suzannechurchill.com\/eng394-f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3508\/revisions\/3511"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.suzannechurchill.com\/eng394-f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.suzannechurchill.com\/eng394-f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.suzannechurchill.com\/eng394-f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.suzannechurchill.com\/eng394-f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}