Electric Arches

(Hardback)

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Description

Original meditations on race, gender, identity, and the joy and pain of growing up, from a distinctive new voice.

Electric Archesis an imaginative exploration of Black girlhood and womanhood through poetry, visual art, and narrative prose.

Blending stark realism with the surreal and fantastic, Eve L. Ewing's narrative takes us from the streets of 1990s Chicago to an unspecified future, deftly navigating the boundaries of space, time, and reality. Ewing imagines familiar figures in magical circumstances blues legend Koko Taylor is a tall-tale hero; LeBron James travels through time and encounters his teenage self. She identifies everyday objects hair moisturizer, a spiral notebook as precious icons.

Her visual art is spare, playful, and poignant a cereal box decoder ring that allows the wearer to understand what Black girls are saying; a teacher's angry, subversive message scrawled on the chalkboard.Electric Archesinvites fresh conversations about race, gender, the city, identity, and the joy and pain of growing up.

Reviews

Reading Eve L. Ewings Electric Arches is such an awakening and active experience this book time travels, makes myth, immerses, paints, opens pathways. This is a living and breathing document, memoir and map, guidebook and scroll. 'Recall this,' writes Ewing in 'Shea Butter Manifesto,' both as invitation and as spellbinding command. Im awestruck by the rigor and intimacy of this book, by its insistent love for both black past and black future. Ewing leaves no unnamed ritual uncovered, no implicit idiom uncelebrated. This book is a gift, a visual and lyrical offering to be treasured as gospel. Morgan Parker, author ofThere Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyonc
Of course she had me at Koko Taylor. She had me again at shea butter and Ron Artest and especially at aneerily 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
Again and again reading Eve Ewings Electric Arches I felt some blooming in my body, or some flock of herons batting into the air in my body, which I think was indicating something like joy at witnessing the imagination at work in these poems, the imagination borne of rigorous attention coupled with critical love. Thankfully, theres a word for all that: tenderness. And the joy is that we learn tenderness by witnessing it. Which is to say, and its not too much to say, this book is one of the maps to our survival. Ross Gay, author ofCatalog of Unabashed Gratitude
Exquisite. Ava Duvernay Striking and visionary a stunning debut. Publishers WeeklyStarred Review In her genre-defying debut, Eve Ewing is imagining a future of hope and safety for all the kids of Chicago. Chicago Reader Electric Archesis a complicated love letter to Chicago a reminder thatmagic is made of asphalt and chain-link fences, the lives we painfully live in our childhoods where imagination offers us bodily escape. The Millions A formally inventive portrait of blackness, of womanhood, Electric Arches delivers both hope and brutal honesty... an inspired debut that reaches beyond the inscribed to the imagined. Guernica Spellbinding...these poems will change you for the better. They will make you whole. Well Read Black Girl A fiercely imaginative celebration of black girlhood and the power of poetry to (re)create the past, the future, and a path for surviving the present. Literary Hub A groundbreaking collection of poetry, short fiction, and art from one of Chicagos cultural iconsElectric Archeswill go down as one of the best and most iconic poetry books about Chicagoever. Chicago Review of Books Homegrown heroEveEwingis the artist and educator that Chicago needs rightnow. WGN Atender letter to black youth. Pacific Standard A powerful revelation. Brightest Young Things Ewingilluminates difficult truths with a type of grace that enthralls and informs. Fortune EveEwingis one of Chicagos most visible cultural icons. Chicago Magazine EveL.Ewingtries to imagine a way out of this mess with poetry and prose. Newcity An intimate look at the changing Chicago landscape. The Lily (Washington Post) Despite the poems slippery relationship with time and space, their truth is rooted firmly in the America of 2017. The Awl
"I didn'tthink it was possible for one book to contain work and worlds that would be lovedby eight year olds and eighty year olds, jr high school dropouts and emeritus english professors. I didn't think it was possible for one book to contain the emotional sweat of Chicago, Dorchester and Yazoo City, Mississippi. I didn't think it was possible for one book to make us smell the residue ofclassroom erasers, empty White Castle bagsand wet wondrousballs of Black girl hairclinging to the bottoms ofbathtubs.With Electrics Arches,Eve Ewing has written a book I thought was un-write-able. The book is as precise as it is ambitious, pulling equally on sharedmemories and individualimagination. Everypage feels like a beginning and end, an invitation and conclusion, but never in that order. Somehow EveEwing created a book that is at once formally spectacular and grounded enough to ask readers the two most important questions in art: will you stop toremember with me and will you help me change the world with that memory. Electric Arches is alive." Kiese Laymon, author ofLong Division

Author Bio

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.