McEneaney is now a published poet

McEneaney

Eamon McEneaney lost his life in the Sept. 11 World Trade Center terrorist attack. His words live on.

On Dec. 6, Cornell Library officially published A Bend in the Road, a collection of poems by McEneaney '77, the late Cornell Hall of Fame lacrosse player.

"When you touch a book, you touch a man, and this is certainly true in this powerful collection of Eamon McEneaney's lyrics. These poems are wide-ranging and passionate: there are love lyrics, elegies, and celebrations of the occasional," writes Kenneth A. McClane, the W.E.B. DuBois Professor of Literature at Cornell in the foreword of the book. "And, most importantly, these poems are big-hearted, full of trenchancy and life."

McClane enjoyed McEneaney's poetic touch. "There's a hip-hop insouciance in some of them, and one can rejoice in the lovely windswept hair of a child on a beach, conspire with the intemperate 'facedom' demanded on the IRT, and be awed by his love for his wife, Bonnie, which is ineluctable, powerful, and deep," writes McClane.

After McEneaney's death, his widow, Bonnie, and a close friend, John Gilbert, sought to turn his dream of becoming a published poet into reality. They worked with the Cornell Library, and that dream is now A Bend in the Road. Proceeds from the sale of the book will be used to support the Eamon McEneaney Visiting Irish Writer's Series at Cornell and the Cornell Library.

In his Cornell playing days, McEneaney was a three-time All-American. He led the Big Red to undefeated seasons and national titles in 1976 and 1977. He was inducted into the Cornell Athletic Hall of fame and the Long Island Lacrosse Hall of Fame. McEneaney also was selected for the All-Ivy Team in football.

After college, McEneaney went on to a Wall Street career. He survived the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center when he led 60 people to safety, but he lost his life in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, while working at Cantor Fitzgerald on the 105th floor of the North Tower.

He began writing poetry in high school and continued working with words throughout college and his career. Inspiration for his poems came from family and friends, the cycle of the seasons, awareness of one's own mortality, the frenzy of the financial world, the sublimity of love -- and all things Irish.

A Bend in the Road can be ordered from the Book Clearing House at (800) 431-1579, or at http://www.bookch.com/poetry.htm#5048.