Cornelius Eady

"Cornelius Eady writes sly, unsentimental, witty poems full of truths that are intimate and profound. The poems encompass a wide territory, reflecting the newfound responsibilities he has assumed as he makes the transition from urban renter to nonplussed rural homeowner, as well as the sobering influence of war and the intimation of his own mortality."--Jacket.

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.

Here are twenty-one poems yoked by thought and language to the filial bond and set in motion by the looming death of a cold and distant father. Whether physically absent or emotionally estranged, the father in these poems has always been a dominating, difficult presence in the lives of his family: the daughter run wild, the son who has disappointed, the wife he never did marry. Watching his father ebb away, the poet wonders at the man's ornery and cantankerous reality even in the face of death - and at his own newfound sense of power. But as well, he searches for a bond, an acknowledgment that he is his father's son.

Victims of the Latest Dance Craze was the 1985 Lamont Poetry Selection of the Academy of American Poets, an award given for an American poet’s second book.