Poem of the Week: “The Inaugural Poem, January, 1961” by Cornelius Eady

The VPR Poem of the Week is Cornelius Eady’s “The Inaugural Poem, January, 1961,” which appeared in the Fall/Winter 2009-2010 issue (Volume XI, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review. This poem also has been published in Poetry from Paradise Valley, an anthology of poems from the first decade of VPR, recently published by Pecan Grove Press.

Cornelius Eady is the author of eight books of poetry: Hardheaded Weather: New and Selected Poems (2008), Brutal Imagination (2001), a National Book Award finalist; The Autobiography of a Jukebox (1997); You Don’t Miss Your Water (1995); The Gathering of My Name (1991); Boom, Boom, Boom (1988); Victims of the Latest Dance Craze (1986), winner of the 1985 Lamont Prize from the Academy of American Poets; and Kartunes (1980). He is also co-editor, with Toi Derricote, of Gathering Ground (2006). Eady’s work in theater includes the libretto for an opera, The Running Man, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 1999. His play, Brutal Imagination, won Newsday’s Oppenheimer Award in 2002. He has received the Prairie Schooner Strousse Award and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Eady is Professor of English & Theater at the University of Missouri.

Tuesday of each week One Poet’s Notes highlights an excellent work by a poet selected from the issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review, except when other posts with news or updates preempt the usual appearance of this item, with the recommendation that readers visit it.