Brutal Imagination PA

by Eady, Cornelius (Author)

• ISBN13: 9780399147203
• ISBN10: 0399147209
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-01-01
• Publisher: Putnam Adult

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."

Author Biography

Formerly director of the Poetry Center at SUNY/Stony Brook, Cornelius Eady is currently visiting professor in creative writing at the City College of New York. His many honors include the Academy of American Poets Lamont prize and fellowships from the Rockefeller, Lila Wallace--Reader's Digest, and John Simon Guggenheim foundations. The author of six previous volumes of poetry of Cave Canem, which offers workshops and retreats to African-American poets

Table of Contents

BRUTAL IMAGINATION
1
How I Got Born	5	(1)
My Heart	6	(1)
Who Am I?	7	(1)
Sightings	8	(2)
My Face	10	(2)
Susan Smith's Police Report	12	(1)
Where Am I?	13	(1)
The Lake	14	(2)
The Law	16	(2)
Why I Am Not a Woman	18	(2)
One True Thing	20	(1)
Composite	21	(1)
Charles Stuart in the Hospital	22	(5)
2
Uncle Tom in Heaven	27	(2)
Uncle Ben Watches the Local News	29	(1)
Jemima's Do-Rag	30	(1)
Buckwheat's Lament	31	(1)
Stepin Fetchit Reads the Paper	32	(3)
3
The Unsigned Confession of Mr. Zero	35	(1)
What I'm Made Of	36	(2)
What the Sheriff Suspects	38	(1)
Next of Kin	39	(2)
What Is Known About the Abductor	41	(1)
Interrogation	42	(2)
My Eyes	44	(1)
What Isn't Known About the Abductor	45	(1)
Press Conference	46	(1)
Sympathy	47	(1)
Confession	48	(5)
4
Birthing	53	(9)
THE RUNNING MAN POEMS
When He Left	62	(1)
Hold the Line	63	(2)
The Train	65	(3)
Piss	68	(3)
Armor	71	(2)
Mamie	73	(1)
Failure	74	(1)
Home	75	(4)
Miss Look's Dream	79	(2)
Baby Sister & the Radio	81	(1)
My Sister Makes Me Up While I Sleep	82	(1)
First Crimes	83	(2)
Liar	85	(3)
Sex	88	(2)
Revenge	90	(1)
What I Do	91	(2)
Replaced	93	(1)
Truth	94	(2)
What Happened	96	(3)
Gossip/Denial	99	(3)
Hunger	102	(1)
Denouncement	103	(2)
Running Man	105

Excerpts

Chapter One

The speaker is the young black man

                    Susan Smith claimed

            kidnapped her children.

    HOW I GOT BORN

Though it's common belief

That Susan Smith willed me alive

At the moment

Her babies sank into the lake

When called, I come.

My job is to get things done.

I am piecemeal.

I make my living by taking things.

So now a mother needs me clothed

In hand-me-downs

And a knit cap.

Whatever.

We arrive, bereaved

On a stranger's step.

Baby , they weep,

Poor child .

    MY HEART

Susan Smith has invented me because

Nobody else in town will do what

She needs me to do.

I mean: jump in an idling car

And drive off with two sad and

Frightened kids in the back.

Like a bad lover, she has given me a poisoned heart.

It pounds both our ribs, black, angry, nothing but business.

Since her fear is my blood

And her need part mythical,

Everything she says about me is true.

    WHO AM I?

Who are you, mister?

One of the boys asks

From the eternal backseat

And here is the one good thing:

If I am alive, then so, briefly, are they,

Two boys returned, three and one,

Quiet and scared, bunched together

Breathing like small beasts.

They can't place me, yet there's

Something familiar.

Though my skin and sex are different, maybe

It's the way I drive

Or occasionally glance back

With concern,

Maybe it's the mixed blessing

Someone, perhaps circumstance,

Has given us,

The secret thrill of hiding,

Childish, in plain sight,

Seen, but not seen,

As if suddenly given the power

To move through walls,

To know every secret without permission.

We roll sleepless through the dark streets, but inside

The cab is lit with brutal imagination.

    SIGHTINGS

A few nights ago

A man swears he saw me pump gas

With the children

At a convenience store

Like a punchline you get the next day,

Or a kiss in a dream that returns while

You're in the middle of doing

Something else.

I left money in his hand.

Mr. ________ who lives in ________

South Carolina,

Of average height

And a certain weight

Who may or may not

Believe in any of the

Basic recognized religions,

Saw me move like an angel

In my dusky skin

And knit hat.

Perhaps I looked him in the eye.

Copyright © 2001 Cornelius Eady. All rights reserved.