Mercy: A conversation with Cornelius Eady and Philip Szporer

Poet Cornelius Eady and filmmaker Philip Szporer discuss their recent collaborative short film, “Mercy”, which combines poetry, imagery, gestures, movements, and voices to create a rich and delicate meditation on Black womanhood. Eady’s cycle of poems is inspired by Phillis Wheatley, the first enslaved woman to publish a poetry collection in America.

This poetic film, directed by Philip Szporer, delves into themes of ethnicity, identity, place, and the dual discourse of a specific Black literary tradition, one that grapples with the reality of enslaved people learning the language of their captors.

Eady will read from the “Mercy” cycle, and excerpts of the film will be screened.  

About the speakers

Cornelius Eady is currently Professor of English and John C. Hodges Chair of Excellence at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. From September 2021 to December 2022 he also served as interim Director of Poets House in New York City. Eady is the author of ten poetry collections, including The Gathering of My Name (1991), nominated for the Pulitzer Prize; Brutal Imagination (2001), a National Book Award finalist; and Hardheaded Weather: New and Selected Poems (2008), nominated for an NAACP Image Award.

Philip Szporer is a Montreal-based filmmaker, writer, and lecturer. He has been immersed in the Canadian dance world for over 35 years. Currently, he teaches in the Contemporary Dance department, the Faculty of Fine Arts, and the Loyola College for Diversity and Sustainability at Concordia University.