Award-winning American writer Cornelius Eady is coming to Whitworth University to read from his poetry collection on April 16, at 7 p.m. in Weyerhaeuser Hall’s Robinson Teaching Theatre.
Eady’s poetry largely focuses on jazz, family life, violence, and questions of race, class and society. The reading will be followed by a short talk and moderated discussion.
He is the author of eight books of poetry, including “Hardheaded Weather: New and Selected Poems.” In 2001, his book “Brutal Imagination was a finalist for the National Book Award.” His second book, Victims of the Latest Dance Craze, won the Lamont Prize from the Academy of American Poets in 1985. His work in theater includes a play, “Brutal Imagination,” that won Newsday’s Oppenheimer Award in 2002, and the libretto for an opera, “Running Man,” which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 1999.
He currently holds the Miller Chair in Poetry at University of Missouri.
In 1996, Eady, with writer Toi Derricotte, co-founded the Cave Canem Foundation, a thriving national organization committed to cultivating the artistic and professional growth of African American poets.
The event is open to the public, and admission is free. For more information, please call (509) 777-3253.
