Brutal Imagination is a National Book Award-nominated poetry collection and an award-winning play based on a true story; written by Pulitzer Prize-nominated author Cornelius Eady; and now an Audible audio production, read by original cast member and Scandal star Joe Morton.

Ahead of our program with Eady and Morton on the legacy and continued relevance of Brutal Imagination, we’ve compiled a list of resources to learn more about the history of this work.

Brutal Imagination, audiobook

Brutal Imagination is a play about a white woman who fabricated and falsely accused a Black man, Mr. Zero, of murders that she herself committed.

Brutal Imagination, poetry collection

Brutal Imagination, the poetry collection explores the vision of the Black man in white imagination; as well as the Black family; and the barriers of color, class, and caste that tear it apart.

How I Got Born by Cornelius Eady

”How I Got Born” in the opening poem in the collection Brutal Imagination.

Though it’s common belief

That Susan Smith willed me alive

At the moment

Her babies sank into the lake

When called, I come.

My job is to get things done.

I am piecemeal.

I make my living by taking things.

So now a mother needs me clothed

In hand-me-downs

And a knit cap.

Whatever.

We arrive, bereaved

On a stranger’s step.

Baby, they weep.

Poor child.

About Cornelius Eady

Cornelius Eady is the author of Brutal Imagination, finalist for the 2001 National Book Award in Poetry. The play, based on the book, premiered at the Vineyard Theatre in New York in 2002, and received The Oppenheimer Award. In addition to Brutal Imagination, Eady has collaborated with jazz composer Deidre Murray on several theater pieces, including Running Man (finalist, Pulitzer Prize in Drama), You Don't Miss Your Water, and Fangs. Eady is also the author of Hardheaded Weather (2008); the autobiography of a jukebox (1997); You Don't Miss Your Water (1995); The Gathering of My Name (1991), nominated for the Pulitzer Prize; BOOM BOOM BOOM (1988); Victims of the Latest Dance Craze (1985), chosen for the 1985 Lamont Poetry Selection of The Academy of American Poets; and Kartunes (1980). In 1996, Eady and the poet Toi Derricote founded Cave Canem, a nonprofit organization serving Black poets of various backgrounds and acting as a safe space for intellectual engagement and critical debate. Eady is also a songwriter and musician, collaborating with his folk trio and band Rough Magic. He has served as director of the Poetry Center at SUNY Stony Brook and director of the MFA Program for Writers at the University of Notre Dame and as the Miller Family Chair at the University of Missouri in Columbia. In fall 2021, he will become Chair of Excellence in Poetry at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

About Joe Morton

Joe Morton is an Emmy Award-winning film, television, and stage veteran, best known as Rowan/Eli Pope in Shonda Rhimes's groundbreaking series Scandal. He most recently starred as Reverend Arthur Finer on the series God Friended Me and recurs on The Politician. Morton is also known for his iconic roles in the films The Brother from Another Planet, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Justice League, and Speed, among many others. He made his Broadway debut in the Tony Award-winning musical Hair, followed by his starring role in Raisin, for which he garnered a Tony nomination and Theatre World Award. In 2016, Morton returned to his theater roots, portraying the iconic comedian Dick Gregory in the one-man show Turn Me Loose Off Broadway and was honored with the NAACP Theatre Lifetime Achievement Award. He reprised his role in Turn Me Loose at The Wallis-Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in fall 2017.

[Hero image description: The banner image at the top of the web page is a collage featuring headshots of Cornelius Eady and Joe Morton, cover art for the Brutal Imagination poetry collection and audiobook, and images of water.]