Eve L. Ewing

cantfindit

Dr. Eve L. Ewing is a sociologist of education and a writer from Chicago. She is the author, most recently, of the poetry collection 1919 and the nonfiction work Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago's South Side. Her first book, the poetry collection Electric Arches, received awards from the American Library Association and the Poetry Society of America and was named one of the year's best books by NPR and the Chicago Tribune. She is the co-author (with Nate Marshall) of the play No Blue Memories: The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks. She also currently writes the Champions series for Marvel Comics and previously wrote the acclaimed Ironheart series, as well as other projects. Ewing is an assistant professor at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration. Her work has been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and many other venues. Source

what I mean when I say I’m sharpening my oyster knife

I mean I'm here

to eat up all the ocean you thought was yours.

I mean I brought my own quarter of a lemon,

tart and full of seeds. I mean I'm a tart.

I'm a bad seed. I'm a red-handled thing

and if you move your eyes from me

I'll cut the tender place where your fingers meet.

 

I mean I never met a dish of horseradish I didn't like.

I mean you're a twisted and ugly root

and I'm the pungent, stinging firmness inside.

I mean I look so good in this hat

with a feather

and I'm a feather

and I'm the heaviest featherweight you know.

I mean you can't spell anything I talk about

with that sorry alphabet you have left over from yesterday.

 

I mean

when I see something dull and uneven,

barnacled and ruined,

I know how to get to its iridescent everything.

I mean I eat them alive.

 

what I mean is I'll eat you alive,

slipping the blade in sideways, cutting

nothing because the space was always there.

Published:

2017

Length:

Regular

Literary Movements:

Contemporary

Anthology Years:

2022

2023

Themes:

Humor & Satire

Identity

Joy & Praise

Literary Devices:

Allusion

an expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; an indirect or passing reference

Anaphora

a figure of speech in which words repeat at the beginning of successive clauses, phrases, or sentences

Metaphor

a comparison between two unrelated things through a shared characteristic

Polysyndeton

the repetition of conjunctions frequently and in close proximity in a sentence