Born 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. The author of several collections of poetry, including suddenly we. (2023), semiautomatic (2017), the new black (2011), a half-red sea (2006) and The Gorgon Goddess (2001). Shockley is also the author of the critical volume Renegade Poetics: Black Aesthetics and Formal Innovation in African American Poetry (2011). Her poetry and essays have been featured in several anthologies, including Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry (2009), Poets on Teaching: A Sourcebook (2010), A Broken Thing: Contemporary Poets on the Line (2011), and Contemporary African American Literature: The Living Canon (2013).
Shockley’s honors include the Holmes National Poetry Prize and fellowships from Cave Canem, MacDowell, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library.
Shockley is a Professor of English at Rutgers University where she is also the Director of Creative Writing and Writers House. She lives in Jersey City, New Jersey.