Praise for Cornelius Eady and Brutal Imagination
“Eady’s joy in language engenders our trust in the music that his art has made of love and pain.”—Publishers Weekly
“Eady fuses headlines and history with language that is a field holler, a blues shout, a hip hop rap that combusts inside the soul and keep on burning.”—Bebe Moore Campbell
“A hymn to all the sons this country has stolen from her African-American families.”—The Village Voice
Brutal ImaginationBrutal Imagination
1
How I Got Born
My Heart
Who Am I?
Sightings
My Face
Susan Smith’s Police Report
Where Am I?
The Lake
The Law
Why I Am Not A Woman
One True Thing
Composite
Charles Stuart in the Hospital
2
Uncle Tom in Heaven
Uncle Ben Watches the Local News
Jemima’s Do-Rag
Buckwheat’s Lament
Stepin Fetchit Reads the Paper
3
The Unsigned Confessions of Mr. Zero
What I’m Made Of
What the Sheriff Suspects
Next of Kin
What Is Known About the Abductor
Interrogation
My Eyes
What Isn’t Known About the Abductor
Press Conference
Sympathy
Confession
4
Birthing
The Running Man Poems:
When He Left
Hold the Line
The Train
Piss
Armor
Mamie
Failure
Home
Miss Look’s Dream
Baby Sister & the Radio
My Sister Makes Me Up While I Sleep
First Crimes
Liar
Sex
Revenge
What I Do
Replaced
Truth
What Happened
Gossip/Denial
Hunger
Denouncement
Running Man
