VS (Poetry Foundation) · Poetry Foundation

VS Live! at Poetry Foundation: Cornelius Eady and Major Jackson vs. Legacy

October 14, 2025·1 hr 11 min·6 clips

Two legendary poets reveal the counterintuitive secret to authentic writing: if you're not scared, you're not doing it right.

Ajene and Brittany begin softly. They name this as their very last Versus Live, a Chicago gathering at the Poetry Foundation with Cornelius Eady and Major Jackson, and they let gratitude arrive before the bios. The reverence feels earned. Major Jackson's bibliography and honors give the room a sense of occasion, but the conversation does not stay formal for long. Craft takes over. Jackson reaches for Eady's Victims of the Latest Dance Craze as a book that shook him, partly through its cultural engagement and mostly through the force of a voice he could recognize anywhere. He wants to understand that. The question becomes how a poet presses a thumb into language so the poem carries an individual presence without turning into habit. Brutal Imagination raises the pressure. Jackson names the premise of Susan Smith imagining a Black man who abducted her children, then honors Eady for giving voice to that weaponized construction. Imagination is not innocent here. The exchange treats poetry as a place where form, ethics, danger, and invention have to deal with one another. Recklessness matters, but not in a simple way. Jackson talks about cultivating a poetics of recklessness with language and form, while also admitting that youthful recklessness needs later attention. The page becomes a testing ground. Instead of only trying to say a thing, he asks how the artist can become a vessel for what needs to be said. His ambition is huge, but it does not sound like posturing. When he wants to say something that has not been said in the history of English language, it lands as devotion. By the end, friendship returns. Ajene and Brittany remember Eady's presence, their early Poetry Foundation work, Black Literary Friendships, and the people who helped hold the room. The farewell is tender. It sounds like a closing chapter for Versus Live, and one more offering to the poets, friendships, and lineages that made the show possible.

As heard by us

A live VS farewell where poetry legacy becomes a conversation about voice, experiment, risk, and responsibility.

Legacy arrives here as influence in motion. At the Poetry Foundation in Chicago, Major Jackson and Cornelius Eady meet for the final VS Live episode, with Ajene and Brittany framing the night as both celebration and farewell.

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Why you'd press play

A Chicago live set with Cornelius Eady and Major Jackson at the Poetry Foundation.

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