MAMDANI’S INAUGURATION POET: An Interview With Cornelius
Eady
Rochester-born Cornelius Eady
has been a friend to poets and pioneer in the poetry community for decades, and
his many accomplishments are well known in the world of contemporary American
literature, and beyond the scope of presenting here. Perhaps most recently, his
widely-covered presentation of the inaugural poem in New York City for incoming
mayor Zoran Mamdani drew significant attention, and prompted us at Poetrybay to
solicit this interview.
What was your conceptional message for the Mamdani
inauguration presentation
In your Inaugural poem you emphasized that it was a 'New
York based poem, that 'this is our time,' and that you were hoping to
demonstrate to your students 'this is possible.' Is this not one of the
underlying aspects of the character of NYC, over centuries, and this particular
historic moment a manifestation of something inherent?
CE: I think what I was trying to
catch was a sense of New York NOW, which of course is always shaped by New York
THEN. This election was the result of having a candidate that was young,
brilliant, savvy in the best sense of that word and was able to present
themselves as a door of opportunity. But it was also and always the end result
of a lot of others, seen and unseen, live and gone, who always sets the stage
for a moment like this to arrive. It was the end of a long line of people who
could imagine this, and to hold and kindle that fire until the conditions were
ripe. I was hoping that the poem in some way was a nod to that, and my
dedication to my Knoxville students was a way of saying that even though this
was coming from NYC, it wouldn’t stop there—it can happen, even in a state as
red as Tennessee.
What was your technical approach to writing the Inaugural
poem
Was your approach to preparing the inaugural poem
different from poetry you have otherwise written in your career?
CE: My approach to writing the Inaugural poem was responsive to the
hard deadline I had to meet—no if ands or buts—and a very small window. I was
invited to read on Dec 12th, and the event was Jan 1st.
Though that gave me almost three weeks, most of it was waiting to be vetted-I
didn’t want to go through the stress of writing the poem if it wasn’t going to
be used—so I didn’t get down to actually writing the poem until around Dec
26-27.
But I had been making notes from my first conversation with the Mamdani
team, and had spent most of the time tracking him on the champagne trail, and
watching his brilliant videos. This helped to reinforce the poem’s tone.
I also realized given the time frame I was going to need some editorial
help, more than my first reader, my wife, Sarah Micklem, and I was relieved
when Elizabeth Alexander reached out. We had a few text and email exchanges
that truly helped.
How are your origins in Rochester and Western New York
State significant to the poem
How do your origins in Rochester and Western New York,
with its historic place in progressivism in America, help to shape the vision
you enunciated in your Inaugural poem?
CE: I’ve always been proud of the fact that at one time, both Fredrick
Douglass and Susan B. Anthony lived within walking distance of each other,
which was also close to the neighborhood I was born and grew up in, and that
Douglass’ paper, The North Star originated and was printed there, and that one
of his most famous speeches, on the relationship between the negro and the
fourth of July was written and delivered there. I know all of this and more,
because it was considered a normal part of our elementary education, something
I suspect wouldn’t be as easy to do these days. My parents were working class,
the circles I hung out with would have probably considered themselves
progressive or radical and of course, that upbringing leaks into the lyrics.
Your Walt Whitman ‘Connection’ and the Inaugural poem
You have an exceptionally long and successful series of
appearances and interactions with the Walt Whitman Birthplace -- I can remember
the first time I saw you read here, it was in the kitchen of the house itself,
as there was no wrap-around visitors center then. Discuss the trajectory of
your interaction with the WWBA, and what this particular interaction as Poet In
Residence represents.
CE: I indeed have a long relationship with the Birthplace. I was on the
board in the early 90’s when I was teaching at Stony Brook and directing its
Poetry Center after June Jordan had left for her teaching job at Berkeley. We
met then in the house, and I have a memory of Alice Quinn, who was then the
Poetry Editor for The New Yorker, arriving with a cassette tape of the voice of
Whitman, reportedly from an Edison wax recording. She placed the tape player on
the mantle and pushed play and out came Walt’s voice back into the very air and
space he had lived in. It was quite a moment, and I found out while I was there
this time that it was indeed his voice, and not an actor reading his work. It
was great to be invited to return and see that the birthplace was not only
alive but had thrived and grown over the years.
Were there echoes of Walt Whitman in your inaugural poem?
In the poem, you write in part
“New York, city of invention/ Roiling town, refresher/
And re-newer/ New York, city of the real/ Where the canyons/ Whisper in a
hundred/ Tongues.../ Where your lucky self/ Waits for your/ Arrival,/ Where
there is always soil/ For your root.
Are these distinct and deliberate echoes of the
Whitmanian voice in your inaugural poem,
CE: That part of the poem was from a need to actually name the City in
the poem—I had used the James Baldwin quote about making a space, but failed to
name that space. This is where my sense of Whitman as a democratic versifier
comes in, and his sense of the City as a place that always reinvents, never
sits still. For me, this is where the poem breaks open. I was probably thinking
of his poem “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”. The poem has other influences as
well—Elizabeth Alexander’s “Praise Song for the Day”, and June Jordan, who was
also deeply influenced by Whitman.
Discuss the role of the Civic Poet vs Poet of Witness
Recent generations of poets have taken on different
positions as to their socio-political role in society, a spectrum which might
be seen to include these categorical areas. Given your record as an innovator
in progressive institution building (CAVE CANEM in particular), which I see as
a 'constructive' form of social action, and as being distinct from
Confrontational Activism, how does the writing of the Mamdani Inaugural poem
place you on that spectrum
CE. The world is big, messy, and has a genius for
breaking your heart. You do what you can from where you are. It also has a
genius for great joy, and justice.
I’m a poet, and I consider that the center of whatever else I do—plays,
interviews, music, arts administration—it will always be the jumping off place
for me. I feel lucky I’ve had a career that allowed me to do more than one
thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment