I
am pleased to note that Cornelius Eady will present his poetry at Valparaiso University this Thursday. A couple of Eady’s recent poems—“The Inaugural Poem, January, 1961” and “Aretha Franklin’s Inaugural Hat”—are included in the current issue (Fall/Winter 2009-2010: Volume XI, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review. Video of Eady reading a sampling of his poetry also can be found online.
Cornelius Eady is the author of eight books of poetry: Hardheaded Weather: New and Selected Poems (2008), Brutal Imagination (2001), a National Book Award finalist; The Autobiography of a Jukebox (1997); You Don’t Miss Your Water (1995); The Gathering of My Name (1991); Boom, Boom, Boom (1988); Victims of the Latest Dance Craze (1986), winner of the 1985 Lamont Prize from the Academy of American Poets; and Kartunes (1980). He is co-editor, with Toi Derricote, of Gathering Ground (2006). The pair of poets also co-founded Cave Canem, an organization designed to discover and support young African American individuals seeking to develop their poetic voices.
Eady’s work in theater includes the libretto for an opera, The Running Man, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 1999. His play, Brutal Imagination, won Newsday’s Oppenheimer Award in 2002. He has received the Prairie Schooner Strousse Award and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Eady is the director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Notre Dame.
Cornelius Eady’s presentation at Valparaiso University will take place on February 11th at 6:30 p.m. in the Mueller Hall Refectory as part of Christ College’s Symposium Series. The event, co-sponsored by the Department of English and Wordfest, is free and open to the public.