On January 1, 2026, a 34-year-old, immigrant, Muslim, democratic socialist mayor was sworn in to run the largest city in the United States. When asked by the Nation magazine if this unlikely event might tell us about what is possible in American politics, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said:

“…the days of us constructing an ever-lowering ceiling of possibility must come to an end… we have to finally usher in an era where the ambition of our vision matches the scale of the crisis in front of us.”

You’d expect poetry to be part of an event inaugurating such a figure and that the poem offered for the occasion would be bland, written by a committee, or full of platitudes, but the poem delivered yesterday matched perfectly the tone of a campaign that appears to be built on mutual respect, vision, human rights and empathy.

Cornelius Eady is that New York City inaugural poet. A poet, playwright and founder of Cave Canem, a nonprofit organization serving Black poets of various backgrounds, a safe space for intellectual engagement and critical debate. He’s a recipient of the 2023 Pegasus Award for Service in Poetry and joins us today via Zoom to talk inaugural poetry and about his poem Proof.

(For the video version of this interview, click: https://paulenelson.com/2026/01/02/jan-2-2026-interview-with-cornelius-eady-on-proof/

Huge thanks to Ethelbert Miller for connecting me to Cornelius.)