Thomas Sayers Ellis (born Washington, D.C.) is an American

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wr ...

, photographer and band leader. He previously taught as an associate professor at

Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a private research university in Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve was established in 1967, when Western Reserve University, founded in 1826 and named for its location in the Connecticut Western Res ...

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U ...

, Bennington College in Vermont, and also at Sarah Lawrence College until 2012.

Life

He was raised in Washington, D.C. and attended Paul Laurence Dunbar High School. In 1988 he co-founded the Dark Room Collective in Cambridge, Massachusetts, an organization that celebrated and gave greater visibility to emerging and established writers of color. He is the leader and a founding member of the band Heroes are Gang Leaders. Ellis received his M.F.A. from Brown University in 1995. Ellis is known in the poetry community as a literary activist and innovator, whose poems "resist limitations and rigorously embrace wholeness." His poems have appeared in magazines such as ''AGNI'' ''Callaloo'', ''Grand Street, Harvard Review, Tin House, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art,'' and anthologized in ''The Best American Poetry'' (1997, 2001, and 2010) and in ''Take Three: AGNI New Poets Series'' (Graywolf Press, 1996), an anthology series featuring the work of three emerging poets in each volume. He has received fellowships and grants from the

Fine Arts Work Center The Fine Arts Work Center is a non-profit enterprise devoted to encouraging the growth and development of emerging visual artists and writers through residency programs, to the propagation of aesthetic values and experience, and to the restoratio ...

, the

Ohio Arts Council The Ohio Arts Council (OAC) is an agency serving the U.S. state of Ohio. History Established in 1965, its mission is to "foster and encourage the development of the arts and assist the preservation of Ohio's cultural heritage." Each year it awar ...

, the

Bread Loaf Writers' Conference The Middlebury Bread Loaf Writers' Conference is an author's conference held every summer at the Bread Loaf Inn, near Bread Loaf Mountain, east of Middlebury, Vermont. Founded in 1926, it has been called by ''The New Yorker'' "the oldest and most ...

Yaddo Yaddo is an artists' community located on a estate in Saratoga Springs, New York. Its mission is "to nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment.". On March ...

, and the

MacDowell Colony MacDowell is an artist's residency program in Peterborough, New Hampshire, United States, founded in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, pianist and philanthropist Marian MacDowell. Prior to July 2020, it was known as the MacDow ...

. Ellis is a contributing editor to ''

Callaloo Callaloo (many spelling variants, such as kallaloo, calaloo, calalloo, calaloux or callalloo; ) is a popular Caribbean vegetable dish. There are many variants across the Caribbean, depending on the availability of local vegetables. The main i ...

''. He compiled and edited ''Quotes Community: Notes for Black Poets'' (

University of Michigan Press The University of Michigan Press is part of Michigan Publishing at the University of Michigan Library. It publishes 170 new titles each year in the humanities and social sciences. Titles from the press have earned numerous awards, including ...

, Poets on Poetry Series). His first full-length collection, ''The Maverick Room'', was published by

Graywolf Press Graywolf Press is an independent, non-profit publisher located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Graywolf Press publishes fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. Graywolf Press collaborates with organizations such as the College of Saint Benedict, the Mellon ...

and won the

John C. Zacharis First Book Award The John C. Zacharis First Book Award honors the best first book of poetry or fiction by a ''Ploughshares'' writer. The award carries a cash prize of $1,500, and feature publication in the "Postscripts" section of the Winter issue. It was started ...

from ''

Ploughshares ''Ploughshares'' is an American literary journal established in 1971 by DeWitt Henry and Peter O'Malley in The Plough and Stars, an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1989, ''Ploughshares'' has been based at Emerson College in Bost ...

.'' The book takes as its subject the social, geographical and historical neighborhoods of Washington, D.C., bringing different tones of voice to bear on the various quadrants of the city. He is also the author of a

chapbook A chapbook is a small publication of up to about 40 pages, sometimes bound with a saddle stitch. In early modern Europe a chapbook was a type of printed street literature. Produced cheaply, chapbooks were commonly small, paper-covered bookl ...

, ''The Genuine Negro Hero'' (Kent State University Press, 2001), and the chaplet ''Song On'' (Wintered Press 2005).

Awards

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris (dwarf planet), Er ...

Whiting Award The Whiting Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and plays. The award is sponsored by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation Mrs. (American English) or Mrs (British English; standard E ...

* 2006

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the April ...

: Guggenheim Fellowship for poetry

Works

*''The corny toys''. Arrowsmith Press. 2018. . * * * *

Anthologies

* * * * * * *

References

External links

BlueFlower Arts > Author's Booking Agent > Author Page

''Ploughshares'' > Authors & Articles > ''Postscripts: Zacharis Award Winner Thomas Sayers Ellis'' > by Don Lee Winter 2006 -07 Issue

* ttp://www.moma.org/explore/multimedia/audios/136/1184 Audio: MoMA: Multimedia: Thomas Sayers Ellis: ''The New Perform-A-Form'' (2008)
Poetry Foundation > Poet > Thomas Sayers Ellis

Audio: WAMU - 88.5 FM - American University Radio > Interview with Thomas Sayers Ellis > Sept. 21, 2004

Audio Interview: WCPN Radio (NPR) > Thomas Sayers Ellis

''Poets & Writers'' News & Trends > ''Q&A: Eady Sees Cave Canem Success'' > By Thomas Sayers Ellis > Nov/Dec 2006
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ellis, Thomas Sayers Artists from Washington, D.C. American male poets American photographers Sarah Lawrence College faculty Case Western Reserve University faculty Brown University alumni Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Dunbar High School (Washington, D.C.) alumni