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Brutal Imagination
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Brutal Imagination Paperback - 2001

by Cornelius Eady


Summary

Brutal Imagination is the work of a poet at the peak of his considerable powers. Its two central sections--which could be called song cycles--confront the same subject: the black man in America.

The first, which carries the book's title, deals with the vision of the black man in white imagination. Narrated largely by the black kidnapper that Susan Smith invented to cover up the killing of her two sons, the cycle displays all of Mr. Eady's range: his deft wit, inventiveness, and skillfully targeted anger, and the way in which he combines the subtle with the charged, street idiom with elegant inversions, harsh images with the sweetly ordinary.

The second cycle, "Running Man," presents poems Mr. Eady drew on for his libretto for the music-drama of the same name, which was a l999 Pulitzer Prize finalist. Here, the focus is the black family and the barriers of color, class, and caste that tear it apart. As the Village Voice said, "It is a hymn to all the sons this country has stolen from her African- American families."

From the publisher

Finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry Brutal Imagination is the work of a poet at the peak of his considerable powers, confronting a crucial subject: the black man in America. "A hymn to all the sons this country has stolen from her African-American families."--The Village Voice

This poetry collection explores the vision of the black man in white imagination, as well as the black family and the barriers of color, class, and caste that tear it apart. These two main themes showcase Cornelius Eady's range: his deft wit, inventiveness, and skillfully targeted anger, and the way in which he combines the subtle with the charged, street idiom with elegant inversions, harsh images with the sweetly ordinary. Includes poems that inspired the libretto for Eady's music-drama Running Man, a 1999 Pulitzer Prize finalist.

Details

  • Title Brutal Imagination
  • Author Cornelius Eady
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition First Edition
  • Pages 128
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York
  • Date 2001-01-15
  • ISBN 9780399147203 / 0399147209
  • Weight 0.31 lbs (0.14 kg)
  • Dimensions 8.25 x 5.36 x 0.35 in (20.96 x 13.61 x 0.89 cm)
  • Ages 18 to UP years
  • Grade levels 13 - UP
  • Themes
    • Ethnic Orientation: African American
  • Library of Congress subjects Race relations, African-Americans
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 00062674
  • Dewey Decimal Code 811.54

Media reviews

"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

Citations

  • Booklist, 02/15/2001, Page 1102
  • Kirkus Reviews, 12/15/2000, Page 1729
  • Library Journal, 01/01/2001, Page 112
  • Multicultural Review, 12/01/2001, Page 74
  • School Library Journal, 07/01/2001, Page 136

About the author

Formerly director of the Poetry Center at SUNY/Stony Brook, Cornelius Eady is currently distinguished writer-in-residence at the City College of New York. He has been awarded the Academy of American Poets Lamont Prize, a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship to Bellagio, Italy, and fellowships from the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Foundation and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. Brutal Imagination was nominated for the 2001 National Book Award for Poetry. The author of six previous volumes, he lives in New York City.
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by Eady, Cornelius

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ISBN 10
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