Brutal Imagination: Poems (Marian Wood Book)

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding!
Review: This collection is made up of two cycles of poems, both dealing with the black man in white America. The first is a cycle of poems narrated by the Imaginary black man Susan Smith invented to cover the killing of her two children. This collection is deep! It's so moving and so vivid it leaves you angry and pulls the heart strings.Eady paints such a picture you can see the tail lights slowly slipping into the water.
The second cycle is about a black family and the barriers of color. I had the pleasure of listening to Eady read from this collection as well as his work in progress. He is very moving. And like he said" The best thing about this is....there is no black man on death row right now for murder because of the imaginary black man she created". This is more than a collection of poetry. Brutal Imagination is the brilliant, stunning creation from one gifted writer.

Dawn
Mahogany reviewer

Rating:
Summary: A Must-Read for Poetry Lovers
Review: This is one of the jewels of my poetry collection. The poems--particularly the ones in which Eady takes the persona of the black man Susan Smith claimed kidnapped her children--are haunting, intelligent, and vivid.

I was lucky enough to hear Cornelius Eady read from this book in 2001--he has a great presence, and made the poems even more electrifying. Even if you can't get to an Eady reading, though, if you enjoy poetry--especially imaginative and/or sociopolitical poetry--you need to buy this book!

Rating:
Summary: Stark and Bitter Truths--
Review: When Susan Smith murdered her young children, she blamed the crime on a black man. When Charles Stuart murdered his wife, he did the same. In the first half of this powerful collection, Cornelius Eady gives voice to this imaginary black man who so often acts as our collective scapegoat. The premise is brilliant, and the poems themselves are powerful--starkly musical and plainspoken.