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Biography Eady’s book Brutal Imagination (2001) is comprised of two cycles of poems, each confronting the same subject: the black man in white America. The first cycle, which carries the book’s title, is narrated largely by the black kidnapper invented by Susan Smith to cover up the killing of her two small sons. The second cycle, “Running Man,” focuses on the African-American family and the barriers of color and class. The title character represents every African-American male who has crashed into these barriers. These two cycles of poems taken together offer a stark reappraisal of race in America. Eady had
received fellowships from the Guggenheim foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation,
and the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Foundation. Formerly Associate
Professor of English and Director of the Poetry Center at the State University
of New York at Stony Brook, Eady is currently visiting professor in creative
writing at the City College of New York. With poet Toi Derricotte, he
cofounded Cave Canem, which offers workshops and retreats for African-American
poets. He has also collaborated with composer Diedre Murray on two highly-acclaimed
music dramas, You Don’t Miss Your Water and Running Man.
Recently, Brutal Imagination was also produced as a music-drama.
Eady lives in New York City. In
1985 he won the Lamont Prize for Poetry and last year he was nominated
for the National Book Award. As part of the Poetry Series Cornelius Eady was interviewed for Seattle Arts & Lectures' newsletter. Click here to download the interview. This is a pdf format. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view this document. If you do not have this software, download it for free here. Selected
Works Photo: Miriam Berkley |
