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By Cornelius Eady

Off go the crows from the roof.
The crows can’t hold on.
They might as well
Be perched on an oil slick.


Such an awkward dance,
These gentlemen
In their spottled-black coats.
Such a tipsy dance,


As if they didn’t know where they were.
Such a humorous dance,
As they try to set things right,
As the wind reduces them.


Such a sorrowful dance.
How embarrassing is love
When it goes wrong


In front of everyone.


Cornelius Eady, “Crows in a Strong Wind” from Victims of the Latest Dance Craze (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1997). Copyright © 1985 by Cornelius Eady. Used with the permission of the author.

Source: Victims of the Latest Dance Craze (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1997)

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Poet Bio

Cornelius Eady
Poet and cofounder of Cave Canem, Cornelius Eady has published more than half a dozen volumes of poetry. Music is a central theme of Eady’s work, along with family and the challenges unique to the African American experience. Eady’s ability to examine several stories at once—while paring the lyrical intersections of these lives to moments remarkable in their clarity, exuberance, and vulnerability—has garnered critical acclaim. In 1996 Eady and poet Toi Derricote founded Cave Canem, a nonprofit organization that supports emerging African American poets through a summer retreat, regional workshops, a first-book prize, annual anthologies, and events and readings across the country. See More By This Poet

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