(person) by Svaha Tue Aug 14 2001 at 17:55:14
Born in Rochester, New York, in 1954.

A significant modern poet, his books include:
  • Brutal Imagination (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2001);
  • You Don't Miss Your Water (1995);
  • The Gathering of My Name (1991),
  • a Pulitzer Prize nominee; BOOM BOOM BOOM (1988);
  • Victims of the Latest Dance Craze (1985), which was the Lamont Poetry Selection of The Academy of American Poets;
    and Kartunes (1980).

    His honors include the Prairie Schooner Strousse Award and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Foundation.
    Formerly director of the Poetry Center at SUNY/Stony Brook, Cornelius Eady is currently Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at the City College of New York. He lives in New York City. He co-founded Cave Canem with poet, Toi Derricote.

    Brutal Imagination is a terrifying and exquisite work. The first part of the book deals with the vision of the black man in white imagination. The speaker of most of the poems is in the voice of the black kidnapper invented by Susan Smith to cover up the killing of her two sons. Other surprising cultural icons - who have been created in the minds of white women throughout history - enter this portion of the book and address the primary speaker. Uncle Tom has a stunning poem.

    An interview and poem can be found at:
    http://www.writenet.org/poetschat/poetschat_ceady.html

    Three poems from Brutal Imagination can be found at:
    http://www.poems.com/threeead.htm
    • I like it!