Electric Arches

Eve L. Ewing is a writer, scholar, artist, and educator from Chicago. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The New Yorker, The New Republic, The Nation, The Atlantic, and many other venues. She is a sociologist at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration.

“Of course she had me at Koko Taylor. She had me again at shea butter and Ron Artest and especially at an eerily intriguing fur suit. This is an effusive celebration of black girlhood in all its muted but relentless sparkle, a tenacious exploration of all its lives, the wide-aloud witnessing of a born storyteller slicing her two-wheeler through the streets of a broken and boisterous city. You won't believe this is Eve Ewing's first book. It's that assured, that crafted. Ever heard Koko Taylor's guttural growl, the lyric that floors you like a backhand slap? It's that too.”–Patricia Smith

• true storiesArrival Day the first time [a re-telling] The Device four boys on Ellis [a re-telling] Sestina with Matthew Henson’s Fur Suittrue stories about Koko Taylor another time [a re-telling] Note from LeBron James to LeBron James Excerpts from an interview with Ron Artest how i arrivedoil and waterShea Butter Manifesto why you cannot touch my hair appletree [on blackwomanhood, from and to Erykah Badu] what I mean when I say I’m sharpening my oyster knife To Stacey, as you were Ode to Luster’s Pink Oilone thousand and one ways to touch your own face to the notebook kid Thursday Morning, Newbury Streetletters from the flat landsOn Prince Origin Story fragment Sonnet Chicago is a chorus of barking dogs at the salon montage in a car The Discount Mega Mall (In Memoriam) I come from the fire city Hood Run One Good Time for Marilyn MosbyColumbus Hospital What I Talk About When I Talk About Black Jesus at work with my father Fullerton Avenue Requiem for Fifth Period and the Things That Went On Then untitled anti-elegy I wish for them a mundane life Affirmation