The Writer’s Block: A Video Q&A with Evie Shockley

Evie Shockley is the author of a half-red sea (2006) and the new black (2011), among other works. Her writing has been featured in several anthologies of African American and contemporary poetry and criticism. Her work interrogates tradition in both the poetic and political sense. She has been the recipient of fellowships from the Millay Colony for the Arts, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library, and she currently teaches at Rutgers University.

In June 2016, Shockley visited City of Asylum for Cave Canem’s annual retreat and poetry reading. In this interview with Sampsonia Way, she discussed the social structures she seeks to redefine in her work and the impact of social movements on contemporary poetry.