Cornelius Eady’s new poems show him in full control of his considerable talents and displaying a rich maturity as he enters midlife. His poems are sly, unsentimental, and witty, full of truths that are intimate and profound.
Hardheaded Weather ranges widely, reflecting the newfound responsibilities Eady has assumed as he transitions from urban renter to nonplussed rural homeowner, as well as the sobering influence of war and the intimation of his own mortality. Yet even at his angriest, the poet has always had a depth of compassion rare in our polarized age, with a sense of humor that is both sophisticated and demotic. These poems will resonate deeply.
As exciting as the new poems are, his selected earlier poems dazzle, too, as they demonstrate the arc of Cornelius Eady’s maturation and the originality of his voice. Taken together, Hardheaded Weather forms a moving—and sometimes searing —testament to the power of poetry.
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Eady, a poet of prestigious accomplishments, writes of the ironies and injustices of life in general and African American life in particular with dramatic intensity, as in Brutal Imagination (2001). But he is also devilishly funny, his scintillating jazz lines recounting hard knocks and heartache with grace and élan. The full range of Eady’s musical and quicksilver poems is covered here in selections from six previous collections, beginning with Kartunes (1980); a previously unpublished manuscript, which includes the wry and furious “Atomic Prayer”; and a set of laser-sharp yet lushly nuanced new poems. “White Couch” is a brilliant and hilarious allegory in which a couple endures urban insanity to claim the unlikeliest of treasures left on a New York curb. A series of poems about acquiring an old house upstate reveals much about our dream of sanctuary and life’s perpetual undermining of all that we cling to. Musings on the fall of the towers and war, deaths in the family, and cancer are balanced by moments of joy in the garden: “A desk lamp spilling light from my window.” --Donna Seaman
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Cornelius Eady was born in Rochester, NY, in 1954. He is the author of seven books of poetry; Kartunes, (Warthog Press, 1980), Victims of the Latest Dance Craze, (Ommation Press, 1986), winner of the 1985 Lamont Prize from the Academy of American Poets, The Gathering of My Name, (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1991), nominated for the 1992 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, You Don't Miss Your Water, (Henry Holt and Co., 1995), The Autobiography of a Jukebox (Carnegie-Mellon University Press, 1997), Brutal Imagination (Putnam, 2001), nominated for the National Book Award, and Hardheaded Weather; New and Selected Poems (April 2008, Putnam), nominated for the 2008 NAACP Image Award. He is the recipient of an NEA Fellowship in Literature (1985), a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry, (1993), a Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Traveling Scholarship to Tougaloo College in Mississippi (1992-1993), a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship to Bellagio, Italy, (1993), and The Prairie Schooner Strousse Award (1994). His work appears in many journals, magazines and the anthologies Every Shut Eye Ain't Asleep, In Search of Color Everywhere, and The Vintage Anthology of African American Poetry, (1750-2000) ed. Michael S. Harper. In June 1997, an adapation of You Don't Miss Your Water was performed at the Vineyard Theatre, in New York City. In April 1999, Running Man, a music-theatre piece co-written with jazz musican Diedre Murray was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama and awarded a 1999 Obie for best musical score and lead actor in a musical. He has taught poetry at SUNY Stony Brook, where he directed its Poetry Center, City College. Sarah Lawrence College, New York University, The Writer's Voice, The 92nd St Y, The College of William and Mary, and Sweet Briar College. With poet Toi Derricote, he is co-founder of Cave Canem, a summer workshop/retreat for African American poets. In January 2002, a production of Brutal Imagination (with a score by Diedre Murray) opened at the Vineyard Theatre, where and won the 2002 Oppenheimer award for the best first play by an American Playwright. At present he is Associate Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame.
This review is from: Hardheaded Weather (Paperback)
If you're not familiar with Eady's work, this book is a great introduction, as it collects poems from several of his previous books (plus a section of new poems). The real standouts here are from his book Brutal Imagination, which is a series of poems in the voice of a black man who Susan Smith invented to blame for the disappearance of her two children (when in fact she had drowned them in her car). Like several of Eady's poems collected in the book ("Why Do So Few Black Study Creative Writing?" jumps to mind), the premise of the Brutal Imagination poems is a scathing assessment of race relations in this country, but whereas a lesser writer might use such premises as uninteresting screeds, Eady's poems always seek out voices of profound understanding and empathy, the end result being that they pack even more punch. Many of the poems in the book are actually quite funny, though, and Eady's distinctive humor and voice shines through throughout. You don't have to have an MFA to understand these poems, but the serious student of poetry will find a lot going on under the surface of these poems.
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I am always happy with the service from Amazon. I buy at least 5-6 books every month. I am not claiming to love every book but being mostly house bound It's great to have so many friends around.{books}. I am hoping to get my nine year oold son interested in poetry as well as dinosaurs so this contemporary poetry was somewhat for him.
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