Wordfest: Cornelius Eady
Subject: Distinguished Poet to Land on Campus
Don’t you just love embedded metaphors? Now every time you think of Cornelius Eady, the English Department’s second Wordfest writer, you’ll picture a plane or perhaps a space shuttle, or maybe even a man in blue tights. Hmmm. That’s worth re-thinking.
Which I hope you will do by attending his poetry reading, co-sponsored this time by Christ College and the Office of Multicultural Programs.
Below, you’ll find an Eady poem so that you can get a taste of his work. There are also books at the book store, and we’ll be selling them that night.
THE NECESSARY INFO:
WHO: Cornelius Eady, one of the most prominent African American poets in the country. He is the author of seven books of poetry, the most recent being the critically acclaimed Hardheaded Weather (2008), which has been nominated for an NAACP Image Award. *more info below
WHEN: Thursday, Feb 11th at 6:30
WHERE: Refectory, Mueller Hall
Refreshments to follow and the book signing, of course. 5th Hour approved.
*With poet Toi Derricote, Eady is co-founder of Cave Canem, a national organization for African American poetry and poets. 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). In June 1997, an adaptation 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.
“I’m A Fool To Love You”
Some folks will tell you the blues is a woman,
Some type of supernatural creature.
My mother would tell you, if she could,
About her life with my father,
A strange and sometimes cruel gentleman.
She would tell you about the choices
A young black woman faces.
Is falling in with some man
A deal with the devil
In blue terms, the tongue we use
When we don’t want nuance
To get in the way,
When we need to talk straight.
My mother chooses my father
After choosing a man
Who was, as we sing it,
Of no account.
This man made my father look good,
That’s how bad it was.
He made my father seem like an island
In the middle of a stormy sea,
He made my father look like a rock.
And is the blues the moment you realize
You exist in a stacked deck,
You look in a mirror at your young face,
The face my sister carries,
And you know it’s the only leverage
You’ve got.
Does this create a hurt that whispers
How you going to do?
Is the blues the moment
You shrug your shoulders
And agree, a girl without money
Is nothing, dust
To be pushed around by any old breeze.
Compared to this,
My father seems, briefly,
To be a fire escape.
This is the way the blues works
Its sorry wonders,
Makes trouble look like
A feather bed,
Makes the wrong man’s kisses
A healing.
