Cornelius Eady (born 1954) is an American writer focusing largely on matters of race and society.

His poetry often centers on jazz and blues, family life, violence, and societal problems stemming from questions of race and class.

[2] Eady has also recently collaborated with jazz composer Deirdre Murray in the production of several works of musical theater, including You Don't Miss Your Water, Running Man, Fangs, and Brutal Imagination.

One of his most popular works, Eady's book Brutal Imagination (2001) comprises two cycles of poems, each confronting the same subject: the black man in white America.

The first cycle, which carries the book's title, is narrated largely by the "imaginary black man that Susan Smith blamed for kidnapping her two children when in fact she had strapped her babies into the back of their family car and pushed the car into John D. Long Lake and let them drown.