1 excerpt
from “soundtracked: the 70s”
i. easy
[the commodores]
not like most sunday mornings of wake up bangs and hairbrushes get up tights and stockings come on dresses lipstick hurry up shaving picking out ties momma the thankless engine we’re running late the get-to-church-on-time show ~ but like those rare winter sundays when we woke to ice or snow fearing frozen pipes no one in nashville going anywhere in this weather my sister and i squeezing into our parents’ bed pink foam curlers still clutching their thrice-rolled ringlets momma’s nightgown gauzy yet modest daddy in his undershirt one arm crooked across closed eyes but a half-smile saying he’s awake under there the radio on and sweet hour of shared blanket when nobody fussed at nobody
ii. the groove line
[heatwave]
the good kids partied at someone’s momma’s house parents talking just down the hall while we laughed and hollered up a roomful of 13-year-old hormones an explosion of sweat ignited by a funky electric bass line lights were allowed low but no slow jams so we were nonstop working the bus stop flare-legs flapping denim derrieres doing the bump jumping into it till homegirl’s momma’s candy dish rattled glass-on-glass on the coffee table pushed in the corner ~ everyone in their own groove until certain songs came on and called us into constellation the freak-twine everybody rocking side to side to the front to the back fingers and booties popping cool like it ain’t nothing but a thang or nasty like i got sugar in my bowl but together carried on horn riffs and a thumping beat into that sweet repeating moment when we ride the momentum of our hips and the
Evie Shockley is a poet and scholar. Her most recent poetry collections are the new black (Wesleyan, 2011) and semiautomatic (Wesleyan, 2017); both won the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and the latter was a finalist for the Pulitzer and LA Times Book Prizes. Her other honors include the Lannan Literary Award, the Stephen Henderson Award, and fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and Cave Canem. Shockley is Professor of English at Rutgers University.