"Evie Shockley burns up the page with her new collection.... semiautomatic is a 21st century survival guide, fierce and full of compassion."–Diana Whitney, San Francisco Chronicle
"[N]otable not only for the way it navigates questions of identity & politics, but for the variety & virtuosity of its use of form."–Robert Archambeau, The Hudson Review
"In semiautomatic, a 2018 Pulitzer finalist and the recent winner of the Hurston/Wright Award for Poetry, Evie Shockley repurposes literary and musical modes from across centuries of African-American and diasporic traditions. Given the choice between formal flawlessness and page-spanning sprawls, between autobiographical revelation and collective outcry, she welcomes the self-contradictions of being all the above."–Christopher Spaide, LA Review of Books