Evie Shockley

Going into this reading I had no idea who Evie Shockley was and had never read any of her poems. With that in mind, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I liked most of the poems she read. One thing I have learned from going to all of these readings is that more than anything else, it is the way an author reads their own work that is most intriguing. This is especially true with Evie Shockley. She was very careful in which words she emphasized and which words she did not, which really changes the way one thinks about a poem. I thought this was pretty cool. Another aspect of the reading that I liked is when Shockley spoke about her poetry writing process. She said that when she goes to write a poem she usually does not have particular idea in mind that she wishes to write about. She said she instead focuses on playing with the words to create unique sounds on the page. You could tell this was especially true in the final set of poems that she read out loud. These poems took every day sayings and combined them into a single line of thought, creating a very distinctive style. There is no doubt in my mind Evie Shockley is an extremely talented writer.