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semiautomatic
Art can't shield our bodies or stabilize the earth's climate, but Evie Shockley's semiautomatic insists that it can feed the spirit and reawaken the imagination. The volume responds primarily to the twenty-first century's inescapable evidence of the terms of black life--not so much new as newly visible. The poems trace a whole web of connections between the kinds of violence that affect people across the racial, ethnic, gender, class, sexual, national, and linguistic boundaries that do and do not divide us. How do we protect our humanity, our ability to feel deeply and think freely, in the face of a seemingly endless onslaught of physical, social, and environmental abuses? Where do we find language to describe, process, and check the attacks and injuries we see and suffer? What actions can break us out of the soul-numbing cycle of emotions, moving through outrage, mourning, and despair, again and again? In poems that span fragment to narrative and quiz to constraint, from procedure to prose and sequence to song, semiautomatic culls past and present for guides to a hoped-for future.
Hardcover is un-jacketed.
Hardcover is un-jacketed.
- GenresPoetryArtRaceNonfiction
104 pages, Hardcover
First published October 3, 2017
9 people are currently reading
360 people want to read
About the author
Evie Shockley
29 books50 followersBorn and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, poet Evie Shockley earned a BA at Northwestern University, a JD at the University of Michigan, and a PhD in English literature at Duke University.
(from http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/e...)
(from http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/e...)
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March 2, 2020Reading semiautomatic by evie shockley
I was recently on a few long plane rides, during which I finished Anne Carson’s Economy of the Unlost, Lisa Robertson’s The Baudelaire Fractal, and Evie Shockley’s semiautomatic. I left Economy of the Unlost in Texas with my dad, and Emily borrowed The Baudelaire Fractal, which I had already responded to in verse anyway.
Though I know her by reputation, I haven’t read anything by Shockley before. My friend Emily let me borrow it, so this is a letter to her about what I thought.
The cover: I’ve been trying to give covers a closer stare. semiautomatic’s cover features a reproduction of the painting Confrontation by Normal Lewis (1971). I’m glad this cover gave me an occasion to look up his work. From his profile on the Smithsonian site, I learn:
Reading the cover, you begin with Shockley’s name in grey, and the title in black, over a band of white. Below this, is an abstract canvas dominated by the color red. The upper and lower fourths of the image fade into smoky darkness towards the center. This darkness gives way, through the mediation of shapes, suggestive of figures without resolving into them, outlined in the same shade as the smoke, to a haze of bright raw vivid red. Through this central band of red, parade another set of forms, pink and flecked with white.
Now here’s Stan Mir from Hyperallergic on the same painting:
Since I borrowed this from a friend, I thought a potential way in to talking about the text is through the pages they dog-eared. The first, “mirror and canvas,” comes early in the book. The poem bounces through a series of couplets that string together anaphorically with the repeated signal phrase, “self-portrait with…” I interpret the mirror of the title as referring to the more visually mimetic moments. The first few couplets are a good example of what I mean:
self-portrait with cats, with purple, with stacks
of half-read books adorning my desk, with coffee,
with mug, with yesterday’s mug. self-portrait
with guilt, with fear, with thick-banded silver ring,
painted toes, and no make-up on my face.
Read the rest at my blog.
I was recently on a few long plane rides, during which I finished Anne Carson’s Economy of the Unlost, Lisa Robertson’s The Baudelaire Fractal, and Evie Shockley’s semiautomatic. I left Economy of the Unlost in Texas with my dad, and Emily borrowed The Baudelaire Fractal, which I had already responded to in verse anyway.
Though I know her by reputation, I haven’t read anything by Shockley before. My friend Emily let me borrow it, so this is a letter to her about what I thought.
The cover: I’ve been trying to give covers a closer stare. semiautomatic’s cover features a reproduction of the painting Confrontation by Normal Lewis (1971). I’m glad this cover gave me an occasion to look up his work. From his profile on the Smithsonian site, I learn:
During the mid-1940s New York painter Norman Lewis abandoned the social realist style that he had pursued for more than a decade, having decided that painting "an illustrative statement that merely mirrors some of the social conditions" was not an effective agent for change. Around 1946 he began exploring an overall, gestural approach to abstraction, establishing himself as the only African American among the first generation of Abstract Expressionist artists.
Reading the cover, you begin with Shockley’s name in grey, and the title in black, over a band of white. Below this, is an abstract canvas dominated by the color red. The upper and lower fourths of the image fade into smoky darkness towards the center. This darkness gives way, through the mediation of shapes, suggestive of figures without resolving into them, outlined in the same shade as the smoke, to a haze of bright raw vivid red. Through this central band of red, parade another set of forms, pink and flecked with white.
Now here’s Stan Mir from Hyperallergic on the same painting:
In this painting [“Confrontation” (1971)], the artist viscerally links a skirmish between Civil Rights protesters and law enforcement to the power of color. He once said, “color can evoke a great deal of visual excitement, to see colors that you don’t ordinarily see, that you take for granted. I don’t think that so many people would be killed on the street if they really saw a red light, if they really looked at it.” Within the cloud of red hovering across the painting, there are shapes suggestive of flags and violent altercations between protesters and riot police. Lewis remarked in 1968 that violence is “as homogenous as apple pie to America.”
Since I borrowed this from a friend, I thought a potential way in to talking about the text is through the pages they dog-eared. The first, “mirror and canvas,” comes early in the book. The poem bounces through a series of couplets that string together anaphorically with the repeated signal phrase, “self-portrait with…” I interpret the mirror of the title as referring to the more visually mimetic moments. The first few couplets are a good example of what I mean:
self-portrait with cats, with purple, with stacks
of half-read books adorning my desk, with coffee,
with mug, with yesterday’s mug. self-portrait
with guilt, with fear, with thick-banded silver ring,
painted toes, and no make-up on my face.
Read the rest at my blog.
August 31, 2020
** 4 stars **
Evie Shockley's collection Semiautomatic continues this talented poet's formally innovative work, blending experimental poetry with the experiences of Black Americans. Many of the poems are focused on war and/or violence against people of color (especially African Americans), but Shockley also includes other elements in this collection - for example, there is a sequence of poems called "The Topsy Suite" that reimagines the character of Topsy from Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.
I particularly enjoyed the poems "Sex Trafficking Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl in the USA," which is mashup of excerpts from Harriet Jacobs's slave narrative with a 2012 article from USA Today about the American sex-trafficking industry; "A-lyrical ballad," which references Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads but is about the murders of multiple African Americans, including Emmett Till, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, Rekia Boyd, and others; "A One-Act Play" from section III, which imagines previous and continuing violent encounters between police officers and unarmed Black Americans; and "Supply and Demand," which critiques racial capitalism. I also quite liked and appreciated the linguistic inventiveness of "A Dark Scrawl" and "Lotto Motto."
I'd read and loved Evie Shockley's previous collection The New Black. Like The New Black, Semiautomatic presents the reader with a wide variety of poetic styles and forms where no two poems are structurally the same. However, for me, even though this was a strong collection and I enjoyed reading it, the poems in Semiautomatic don't quite all come together thematically in the same way that her poetry in The New Black did. Nevertheless, if you have read and enjoyed Shockley's previous work or you like experimental poetry, then I would definitely recommend this collection.
Evie Shockley's collection Semiautomatic continues this talented poet's formally innovative work, blending experimental poetry with the experiences of Black Americans. Many of the poems are focused on war and/or violence against people of color (especially African Americans), but Shockley also includes other elements in this collection - for example, there is a sequence of poems called "The Topsy Suite" that reimagines the character of Topsy from Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.
I particularly enjoyed the poems "Sex Trafficking Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl in the USA," which is mashup of excerpts from Harriet Jacobs's slave narrative with a 2012 article from USA Today about the American sex-trafficking industry; "A-lyrical ballad," which references Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads but is about the murders of multiple African Americans, including Emmett Till, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, Rekia Boyd, and others; "A One-Act Play" from section III, which imagines previous and continuing violent encounters between police officers and unarmed Black Americans; and "Supply and Demand," which critiques racial capitalism. I also quite liked and appreciated the linguistic inventiveness of "A Dark Scrawl" and "Lotto Motto."
I'd read and loved Evie Shockley's previous collection The New Black. Like The New Black, Semiautomatic presents the reader with a wide variety of poetic styles and forms where no two poems are structurally the same. However, for me, even though this was a strong collection and I enjoyed reading it, the poems in Semiautomatic don't quite all come together thematically in the same way that her poetry in The New Black did. Nevertheless, if you have read and enjoyed Shockley's previous work or you like experimental poetry, then I would definitely recommend this collection.
July 25, 2018
Intensely alive and topical, brimming with unfettered social critique and on-fire language, semiautomatic is pertinent, spirited, exhilarating poetry that sweeps us past political and social despair, functioning as a fierce and loving bulwark against complacency and violence. semiautomatic was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and for the LA Times Book Prize.
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March 21, 2024this book is good! and it’s fast! and it’s important! unfortunately, I read it at that point in the semester where I only feel exhaustion and am desperate to read anything except things for school.
December 27, 2020
What a terrible book of poetry. Just a bunch of word salads lazily jotted down on paper. Honestly, did she even look over and edit this collection?! Lol. Absolute garbage. Only a collection of poems that could come out of the hotbed of academia could be this useless.
November 9, 2017
Evie Shockley's poetry is clever and accessible in its word play and repetition, elements that serve the racial and political landscape of this book well. Get this, for its violence and its love, and put it in your brain.
July 24, 2024
semiautomatic by Evie Shockley is a collection of poems that have been organized into four suites: o the times, the topsy suite, refrain, and blues modality. Shockley addresses the contemporary social issues faced by marginalized communities in the United States as well as broader issues such as global warming.
The first thing that struck me as I glanced through the collection is that Shockley does not capitalize any words throughout the entire book. This gives the reader the impression that the subject matter is what is important, and there is no time to lose by focusing on trivial matters such as grammar. The only exception are words that are acronyms (CIA, CEO, FCC) in the poem “keep your eye on” and in the poem “Haynes Manor.”
The first suite, “o the times,” consists of twelve works and addresses important issues such as the Occupy Movement, sex trafficking, and global warming. In “weather or not,” Shockley says “polar bears are white and their real estate is being liquidated too” bringing attention to global warming and racial inequality by comparing white polar bears to minority communities that are often displaced gentrification and rising rents. Polar bears, even though they are white, are also losing their homes. The works progress to more serious issues until we arrive at the last poem of the “o” suite: “Sex Trafficking Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl in the USA (or, The Nation’s Plague in Plain Sight).” In this poem, Shockley recounts the experience of a young girl being groomed into sex work by a man she trusted to save her and offer shelter. The subject matter, while it is a real problem that demands awareness, should come with a trigger warning for the reader.
The second suite is “the topsy suite” which is a reference to the character Topsy from the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin. We know this because Shockley provides that information in the notes section at the end of the book. In the original work, Topsy is a young slave girl from the antebellum period who is often reprimanded with whippings for being troublesome. In Shockley’s book, topsy embarks on adventures in other works of literature. Rather than being in Uncle Tom’s, she finds herself in Alice’s wonderland. Unfortunately for topsy, no matter what she does, she always finds herself back in the master’s big house:
“and so she did: wandering up and down,
and trying tactic after tactic, but always coming back to the big house,
do what she would. indeed, once, when topsy turned a corner rather
more quickly than usual, she ran against it before she could stop
herself. i'm not going in again. i know i should have to go back through the
looking-glass- back into the old box- and there'd be an end of all my efforts to
escape!”
(excerpt: from “topsy in wonderland”).
The third suite is called “the refrain” and here we see Shockley cover certain issues that are unique to Americans: police brutality and gun violence. In a roundabout way she addresses the deaths of people of color as a result of racial prejudice. I say roundabout because she does not directly mention names but the reader can deduce who she is referring to by the context.
he was a guinean emigrant, two years in new york,
a hard-working man, religiously devout,
who reached in a pocket to take his id out,
when 4 officers, suspecting (wrongly) that he was armed, unloaded their
9-millimeter semiautomatic pistols into his body (41 shots, just to be safe),
This passage from the poem “a-lyrical ballad (or, how america reminds us of the value of family)” is referencing the death of Amadou Diallo and notably is the only time the titular semiautomatic word is mentioned. It should be noted that the word “America” is left in lowercase deliberately by the poet.
In the final suite, “blues modality,” the poet continues her crusade of awareness and offers hope for resistance and highlights the work to be done to right the wrongs of the world and the oppressors that have plagued society for as long as history has been written.
Readers can expect to embark on an emotional journey if they read semiautomatic by Evie Shockley. It brings to light the truths of the world that we sometimes choose to look away from. There are parts of America’s past (and America’s present as shown in Shockley’s work) that there must be a reckoning with. This moving and poignant collection of poems is a great place to start that important work.
The first thing that struck me as I glanced through the collection is that Shockley does not capitalize any words throughout the entire book. This gives the reader the impression that the subject matter is what is important, and there is no time to lose by focusing on trivial matters such as grammar. The only exception are words that are acronyms (CIA, CEO, FCC) in the poem “keep your eye on” and in the poem “Haynes Manor.”
The first suite, “o the times,” consists of twelve works and addresses important issues such as the Occupy Movement, sex trafficking, and global warming. In “weather or not,” Shockley says “polar bears are white and their real estate is being liquidated too” bringing attention to global warming and racial inequality by comparing white polar bears to minority communities that are often displaced gentrification and rising rents. Polar bears, even though they are white, are also losing their homes. The works progress to more serious issues until we arrive at the last poem of the “o” suite: “Sex Trafficking Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl in the USA (or, The Nation’s Plague in Plain Sight).” In this poem, Shockley recounts the experience of a young girl being groomed into sex work by a man she trusted to save her and offer shelter. The subject matter, while it is a real problem that demands awareness, should come with a trigger warning for the reader.
The second suite is “the topsy suite” which is a reference to the character Topsy from the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin. We know this because Shockley provides that information in the notes section at the end of the book. In the original work, Topsy is a young slave girl from the antebellum period who is often reprimanded with whippings for being troublesome. In Shockley’s book, topsy embarks on adventures in other works of literature. Rather than being in Uncle Tom’s, she finds herself in Alice’s wonderland. Unfortunately for topsy, no matter what she does, she always finds herself back in the master’s big house:
“and so she did: wandering up and down,
and trying tactic after tactic, but always coming back to the big house,
do what she would. indeed, once, when topsy turned a corner rather
more quickly than usual, she ran against it before she could stop
herself. i'm not going in again. i know i should have to go back through the
looking-glass- back into the old box- and there'd be an end of all my efforts to
escape!”
(excerpt: from “topsy in wonderland”).
The third suite is called “the refrain” and here we see Shockley cover certain issues that are unique to Americans: police brutality and gun violence. In a roundabout way she addresses the deaths of people of color as a result of racial prejudice. I say roundabout because she does not directly mention names but the reader can deduce who she is referring to by the context.
he was a guinean emigrant, two years in new york,
a hard-working man, religiously devout,
who reached in a pocket to take his id out,
when 4 officers, suspecting (wrongly) that he was armed, unloaded their
9-millimeter semiautomatic pistols into his body (41 shots, just to be safe),
This passage from the poem “a-lyrical ballad (or, how america reminds us of the value of family)” is referencing the death of Amadou Diallo and notably is the only time the titular semiautomatic word is mentioned. It should be noted that the word “America” is left in lowercase deliberately by the poet.
In the final suite, “blues modality,” the poet continues her crusade of awareness and offers hope for resistance and highlights the work to be done to right the wrongs of the world and the oppressors that have plagued society for as long as history has been written.
Readers can expect to embark on an emotional journey if they read semiautomatic by Evie Shockley. It brings to light the truths of the world that we sometimes choose to look away from. There are parts of America’s past (and America’s present as shown in Shockley’s work) that there must be a reckoning with. This moving and poignant collection of poems is a great place to start that important work.
October 30, 2021
3.5 rounded up. haven't read poetry for a while and i wanted some more.
best spoken aloud - powerful when it hits - but shockley has a strange tendency to love cliches unironically and i did not feel every line was irreplaceable, sometimes straying into sentimentality.
however aware this collection and her work is not for me as a white(ish) person from the UK so please trust own voices on this
best spoken aloud - powerful when it hits - but shockley has a strange tendency to love cliches unironically and i did not feel every line was irreplaceable, sometimes straying into sentimentality.
however aware this collection and her work is not for me as a white(ish) person from the UK so please trust own voices on this
September 16, 2022
I found this collection hard to connect with. There were some of these that were powerful and moving. Others felt almost too cute or too focused on form rather than substance or readability. I'm sure I'm not the target audience as someone who only occasionally dabbles in poetry reading and doesn't understand much of the referencing and conversation that I'm sure is happening in the background here.
June 30, 2017
There is no keener mind in American poetry than Shockley's, with her quick turns and inflections, slipping between subjectivity and documentary, between verse and refrain. Her poems engage--politically, formally, historically, profoundly--with the redistribution of power through language. Read this book and get shook.
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August 13, 2018What a smart fierce ride. Just when you think the poems can't play harder, they do. (I can't get enough of "legend" and "a dark scrawl" – how deft, how fine.) And all the time between they bubble up with laughter and love.
(I am beside myself that I got to spend time with Evie for a week this summer and now know her as a smart kind teacher as well as a bad ass poet.)
(I am beside myself that I got to spend time with Evie for a week this summer and now know her as a smart kind teacher as well as a bad ass poet.)
September 3, 2018
The best book of poetry I've read in maybe two years. Haven't stopped thinking about it since I read it last April. Inventive, wry, funny at times, full of rage at times, immensely compassionate the whole way through. Clearly the work of someone who loves to play with language–but who is also deadly serious about the question of how people, especially Black people, can thrive in today's America.
December 30, 2019
Some excellent, absolutely beautiful and wrenching poems here (“topsy suite”, “refrain”, “sex trafficking incidents...”) peppered with oddly placed and frankly ho hum poems (“mirror and canvas”, “one act play”, “the twins”). Maybe I’m finding it hard to connect all these parts within one arc, but I feel like there are at LEAST two books within this whole work.
May 27, 2020
The last poetry book I read was very aural - you could *hear* it, but Semiautomatic was very *visual* for me. The plays on words, the homophones, the different meanings, these poems needed to be read to be fully appreciated. Running themes of the black experience in America: violence, exploitation, police brutality, slavery, and other ways of showing the violence of racism.
April 28, 2025
An experimental poet with a bluesShaded pen worried about the pandemic of violence she is surrounded by. Global, brutal (and yet tender), and careful. Evie Shockley is a great writer. What’s not to liken/keep your eye one/philosophically immune.
July 15, 2019
I admire Shockley's work, her experimentation, her tackling of the horrors of our world. This collection is a lot to process. I'll be reading it again, I'm sure.
June 16, 2020
absolutely brilliant
April 16, 2024
another amazing work out of the BAM
November 23, 2024
She is brilliant but I did find some of the poems hard to connect with. Well done collection otherwise
January 1, 2018
Knockout after knockout in Shockley's latest--my favorite in particular is the "Topsy in Wonderland" section, which mashes up Topsy from Uncle Tom's Cabin with scenes taken word-for-word from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to explore racism in Reconstructionist America. Breathtaking.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews