pantoum: landing, 1976

By Evie Shockley Evie Shockley

dreaming the lives of the ancestors,

you awake, justly terrified of this world:

you could dance underwater and not get wet,

you hear, but the pressure is drowning you:

you’re awake, but just terrified of this world,

where all solids are ice: underwater boogie,

you hear, but the press sure is drowning you:

the igbo were walking, not dancing:

where all solids are ice, underwater boogie

is good advice, because they’re quick to melt:

the igbo were straight up walking, not dancing:

and you’ve still got to get through this life:

take my advice, quickly: they’re melting:

you could dance underwater and not get wet:

and you’ve got to, to get through this life still

dreaming the lives of the ancestors

Source: a half-red sea (Carolina Wren Press, 2006)

Biography

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 a half-red sea (2006) and the new black (2011), Shockley is also the author of the critical volume Renegade Poetics: Black Aesthetics and Formal Innovation in African American Poetry . . .

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