Proof

On Cornelius Eady's Inauguration Poem

“You have to imagine it,” the poet Cornelius Eady sang out on Friday’s inauguration of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City. His poem, called “Proof,” is a chant rousing us to create our own evidence for the possibility of things. “You have to imagine it,” he repeats and repeats, in an elegant galloping anapest pulse, a rising sermonic call for us a…