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As Black History Month began, 91视频 opened its doors to poet Evie Shockley, Associate Professor at Rutgers University. Shockley hosted a reading on February 5th, inviting the whole 91视频 community to the presentation of her new repertoire of poetry from her most recent collection: semiautomatic. The African-American poet 鈥� whose previous works include the new black and a half-red sea 鈥� is known for her focus on African American and African diaspora literature.

Reading from her collection, including the poems 鈥渕y life as china鈥� and 鈥渁 lyrical ballad (or, how america reminds us of the value of family),鈥� Shockley took the audience on an emotional journey filled with music and laughter. Commanding the crowd with her powerful voice, she forced everyone in the room to share her emotions as she flipped through the pages of her books 鈥� childhood memories, nostalgia, blues and then at last, exhilaration.聽

鈥淚 am not proud of how I husbanded your mother all those years, but marriage, too, is a peculiar institution. I could not have stayed so unequally yoked so long, without a kind of Freedom in it,鈥� she read from 鈥渇rom The Lost Letters of Frederick Douglas.鈥� The letter was a birthday wish (or a plea, or an apology) to his daughter at fifty-three and as if it wasn鈥檛 poignant enough, Shockley 鈥� through Douglas 鈥� ended with: 鈥淧erhaps I will post, rather than burn, this letter, this time. I鈥檝e written it so often, right down to these closing lines, in which I beg you to be kinder, much kinder, to your stepmother. You two are of an age to be sisters, and of like temperament 鈥� under other circumstances, you might have found Friendship in each other.鈥�

Shockley says she gets her inspiration comes from art (specifically poetry, novels, visual art and music) or the news, her scholarship and research and from the different ways in which language is being used around her daily. As she read from semiautomatic and her other poetry collections, the poem most people seemed to relate with was 鈥溍� table鈥� 鈥� which was inspired by a visit to her partner鈥檚 French family 鈥� 鈥淭he vegetarian they love and the woman he loves.鈥� A laugh of warm recognition from the audience broke out when, amidst the list of mouth-watering French meals, Shockley announced, 鈥渢hey knew we could not have food like this aux 脡tats-Unis, melon as delightful as a silk blouse against the shoulders, no wine as full and textured as sex, not possible, not to be believed of the land of pagan cuisine.鈥� With a big applause from the crowd, she closed the poem with 鈥淚 am gourmet, gourmande.鈥�

The evening ended with questions from the crowd. Shockley admitted that yes, there is such a thing as happy poetry. It鈥檚 just not her style.