Sometimes a person meets someone and it is as though she has known him all her life. It was like that yesterday evening when I went to hear Cornelius Eady read his poems. I had heard him years ago in Provincetown, but since then, had only tangentally followed his work. I didn't really get the blues or jazz poems, but after hearing them read, I get them now.
Eady has a soft voice that is made up of all tones. He does not so much say his poems as croon them, reminding me in a way of the Russian style of declaiming poetry, though far less self-consciously poetic. Though I had failed to wear my hearing aids, so missed the ends of many lines, I understood, I felt, quite well.
The poems moved seamlessly from autobiography (also autobiographical prose) to dramatic pieces from the point of view of the archetypal black killer white murderers have again and again nailed as the culprit for their own crimes. The voice there is matter of fact and yet very emotional, under the surface, never shrill. There is the secret I think of political poems, if anyone cares to follow this lead.
Before the reading, I had a really nice talk with Eady. It seemed as if we had been moving in parallel writer's circles, though of course he has done so much more than I have and with earned acclaim. I hope we meet again another time. B But meanwhile, read his work! I will.
2 comments:
I am delighted for you that you got to attend this reading. Perhaps your observation that it is effective to leave the shrill tone out of political poems goes for politics in general.
I have tried to avoid politics in writing poetry, not because I don't care about it, but because of how emotional it makes me and everyone else. It isn't so easy to be as apparently low-key as Eady is, but it is productive, clearly.
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