Cornelius Eady, GPC 1998-1999
Cornelius
Eady (1954-) is the author of eight books of poetry, including his most
recent, Hardheaded
Weather: New and Selected Poems (Putnam, April 2008). Eady was
born and raised in Rochester, New York and attended Monroe Community
College and Empire State College. Eady's titles include Brutal Imagination (G. P.
Putnam's Sons, 2001), which was a finalist for the 2001 National Book Award in
Poetry; the autobiography of a
jukebox (1997); You
Don't Miss Your Water (1995); The
Gathering of My Name (1991), which was nominated for the Pulitzer
Prize; BOOM BOOM BOOM
(1988); Kartunes (Warthog Press,
1986); Victims
of the Latest Dance Craze (1985), which was chosen by Louise
Glück, Charles Simic, and Philip Booth for the 1985 Lamont Poetry Selection of
The Academy of American Poets, and Kartunes
(1980). In 1996, Eady and the poet Toi Derricote founded Cave
Canem, a nonprofit organization serving black poets of various backgrounds and
acting as a safe space for intellectual engagement and critical debate. Cave
Canem remains a thriving national network of black poets, as well as an
institution offering regional workshops, readings, a first book prize,
and a summer retreat. Along with Derricote, Eady also edited Gathering Ground (University
of Michigan Press, 2006). He has collaborated with jazz composer Deidre
Murray in the production of several works of musical theater, including You Don't Miss Your Water; Running Man, a finalist for
the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 1999; Fangs,
and Brutal Imagination,
which received Newsday's
Oppenheimer Award in 2002. About his work, the poet June Jordan said,
"Cornelius Eady leads and then cuts a line like no one else: following the
laughter and the compassionate pith of a dauntless imagination, these poems
beeline or zig-zag always to the jugular, the dramatic and unarguable
revelation of the heart." His honors include the Prairie Schooner Strousse
Award, a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Award, and fellowships from the
Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Rockefeller
Foundation. He has served as director of the Poetry Center at the State
University of New York at Stonybrook and has taught at Sarah Lawrence College,
New York University, City College of New York, The Writer's Voice, The College
of William and Mary, and Sweet Briar College. He currently lives in South Bend,
Indiana and is a professor at the University of Notre Dame.
Visit Cornelius Eady at his home page.
Additional Links:
Bio and poems at poets.org.
Entry on famouspoetsandpoems.com.
Brief bio and a few poems at blueflowerarts.com.
A few poems at washintonarg.com.
"Emmet Till's Glass-Top Casket," The New Yorker (April 5, 2010).
Animation of Eady's poem "Nina's Blues," Poetry Everywhere, with Garrison Keillor.
"Handymen," The New Yorker (October 8, 2007).
"Nina's Blues," text and audio.
Author bio and full text of eleven Eady poems, plus audio links.
Webcast: Grace Cavalieri interviews Cornelius Eady for the Library of Congress's Poet and the Poem Series, September 24, 2003.
"Lunch Poems," complete reading recorded April 3, 2003.
BOMB Interview with Eady, 2002.
Blackbird. Print and audio for three poems: "Grief Bird," "Hardheaded Weather," and Tubman's Rock, as well as complete audio of Eady reading at the Virginia museum of Fine Arts, December 4, 2002.