Thomas Sayers Ellis Selected Works

The brilliant and provocative second book of poems by Thomas Sayers Ellis. Skin, Inc. is Thomas Sayers Ellis's ambitious argument in sound and image for an America whose identity is in need of repair. In lyric sequences and with his own photographs, Ellis traverses the African-American and American literary landscapes and performs tributes for the Godfather of Soul, James Brown; the King of Pop, Michael Jackson; and the election of President Barack Obama. This book assures Ellis's place as one of the most audacious poets now writing.

Take Thomas Sayers Ellis: Ellis's fractured syntax, his spasmodic, staccato utterance suggest a defiant sensibility. Indeed, at the center of Ellis's work is the figure of an aggressive father, taunting his son into song. Thomas Sayers Ellis was a founding member of Boston's Dark Room Collective and coeditor of AGNI's successful poetry anthology, On the Verge.

Take Larissa Szporluk: This poet stalks a landscape that is humid, stylized, Southern. The poet Gregory Orr says of her work: "Faced with such rending beauty, such ravished lucidity, all we can do is stand back and gaze with gratitude and awe." Larissa Szporluk studied at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, has taught at Bowling Green State University, and now resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Take Joe Osterhaus: Unabashedly intellectual and demanding, Osterhaus's verse displays a rare elegance. According to David St. John, "these precise meditations are dazzling for their ability to touch the seemingly ordinary moments of a life and find in them the materials of both miracle and change." Joe Osterhaus has published in such places as the Antioch Review, the Boston Review, and the Nebraska Review, and he currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Edited by Askold Melnyczuk and the poetry panel of AGNI magazine, Take Three is the first in an important annual series designed to launch the work of new poets.

This work contains poetry by Thomas Sayers Ellis, described by critics as "emotionally complex".

With its defiance for any one tradition or voice, Thomas Sayers Ellis’s debut becomes a powerful argument against monotony.

In one poem, Thomas Sayers Ellis prognosticates, “Pretty soon, the Age of the Talk Show / Will slip on a peel left in the avant- gutter.” The result is The Maverick Room, the testing ground of determination and serendipity, where call-and-response becomes Steinian echo becomes Post-Soul percussive pleasure becomes a bootlegged recording hustled out of a D.C. go-go club.