imagination in such poems as “How I Got Born,”
“Who Am I,” “My Face,” “The Law,” and “Compos-
ite.” At the center of the second cycle, “Running
Man,” is the black family and its inevitable division
and fragmentation by racism and classism, which
is the central theme in “When He Left,” “Failure,”
“Liar,” and the title poem, “Running Man.”
Eady’s many honors and awards include an
NEA Fellowship in Literature (1985), a John
Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry (1993), a
Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Traveling Scholarship
to Tougaloo College in Mississippi (1992–1993),
a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship to Bellagio,
Italy (1993), and The Prairie Schooner Strousse
Award (1994). Running Man, a music-theater piece
cowritten with jazz musician Diedre Murray, was
awarded an Obie (1999).
Although Eady’s works have not garnered the
critical attention they so richly deserve, he is “a
phenomenal talent,” who has emerged among his
contemporaries QUINCY TROUPE, YUSEF KOMUN-
YAKAA, KALAMU YA SALAAM, E. ETHELBERT MILLER,
LUCILLE CLIFTON, and RI TA DOVE as one of the
most skilled and sensitive African-American writ-
ers. Using his full range and voice, Eady’s poems
reverberate with a BLUES rhythm that captures the
heartbeat of black America. His next volume of
poetry is New Selected Poems (2005).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Pettis, Joyce, ed. African American Poets: Lives, Works,
and Sources. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press,
2002.
Loretta G. Woodard
Elder, Lonne, III (1941–1996)
Although Lonne Elder was born in Americus,
Georgia, he grew up in Newark, New Jersey, where
he was reared by an aunt and uncle after the death
of both parents left him an orphan. As a teenager,
Elder accompanied his uncle, a numbers runner,
while he collected betting slips. After graduating
high school, Elder briefly attended New Jersey
State Technical College but left before complet-
ing his first year. He was subsequently drafted
into the army and stationed at Fort Campbell in
Kentucky. While in Kentucky, Elder met poet ROB-
ERT HAYDEN, then a professor at Fisk University,
who became a very important mentor-educator
to him. In 1953, after completing his stint in the
army, Elder moved to Harlem where he roomed
with dramatist DOUGLAS TURNER WARD, became
actively involved with the Harlem Writer’s Guild
headed by novelist JOHN O. KILLENS, and studied
all aspects of the theater. Ward would, in the end,
have the greatest influence on Elder, who worked
part time as an actor, playing his first role as Bobo
in a production of LORRAINE HANSBERRY’s A RAISIN
IN THE SUN.
Although his first play, A Hysterical Turtle in a
Rabbit’s Race, remains unpublished, Elder gained
attention for his second play, Ceremonies in Dark
Old Men (1969), which was first read and staged
in 1965 at New York’s Wagner College on Staten
Island. With funding secured from the successful
reception of Ceremonies, Elder formally studied
drama and filmmaking at Yale University from
1965 to 1967. Elder’s third play, Charade on East
Fourth Street, was performed at Expo ’67 in Mon-
treal, Canada. Also during this period, he worked
with the Negro Ensemble Company, headed by his
former roommate; he acted in Ward’s Day of Ab-
sence before the company produced his Ceremonies
at the St. Mark’s Playhouse in 1969.
A two-act play set in a near-defunct barber
shop on Harlem’s 126th Street, Ceremonies in Dark
Old Men, Elder’s best-known work, is centered
around the fragmentation of the Parker family, fa-
ther Russell Parker and siblings Theo, Bobby, and
Adele, following the death of the mother. Tired of
her unsolicited role as the family’s sole breadwin-
ner, Adele sets an ultimatum for the unemployed
males, demanding they find employment within
six days and become responsible contributors to
the operation of their home. She informs them
that, unlike her mother, she has no intention of
working herself to death while they loaf around.
As the days pass, Parker unsuccessfully searchesElder, Lonne, III 165