Born in Dayton, Ohio in 1984 to a musical family, Eliot Cardinaux is a pianist and poet now living in Northampton, Massachusetts. Having studied jazz piano at The Manhattan School of Music, as well as contemporary improvisation at the New England Conservatory, he has lived in many places and absorbed a variety of influences. He is the founder of The Bodily Press through which he has released the works of other poets, as well as several of his own chapbooks, including, most recently, Winter Poems. His first album as a leader, American Thicket, was released in 2016 on Loyal Label, and features Mat Maneri (viola), Thomas Morgan (bass), and Flin van Hemmen (drums). He has since been involved in projects such as Odysseus Alone, Magpie, Our Hearts as Thieves, and The Gown of Entry. His poetry has been published in Caliban Online, Big Big Wednesday, Hollow, Bloodroot Literary Journal, White Heat, and Dispatches from the Poetry Wars. Cardinaux performs and records regularly around the East Coast and in Europe, with musicians such as Asger Thomsen, Jeb Bishop, Mia Dyberg, and Kresten Osgood. His latest project, Sweet Beyond Witness, is an album of solo piano compositions and spoken word with accompanying writings and film, released in August, 2018 on The Bodily Press. He was recently admitted to the University of Massachusetts in Amherst to pursue an MFA in poetry.
Photo by Michelle Arcila Opsvik