Thomas Sayers Ellis
Thomas Sayers Ellis (born Washington, D.C.) is a poet, photographer, and Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Sarah Lawrence College[1] in Yonkers, New York, and a core faculty member of the Lesley University Low Residency MFA Program in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He previously taught as an associate professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
Life
He was raised in Washington, D.C.[2] 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.[3] Ellis received his M.F.A. from Brown University in 1995.
Ellis is known in the poetry community as a literary activist and innovator,[4] whose poems "resist limitations and rigorously embrace wholeness."[5] His poems have appeared in magazines such as AGNI[6] 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 Ohio Arts Council, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Yaddo, and the MacDowell Colony.[7]
Thomas Sayers Ellis is a contributing editor to Callaloo and a consulting editor to A Public Space. He compiled and edited Quotes Community: Notes for Black Poets (University of Michigan Press, Poets on Poetry Series).[8]
His first full-length collection, The Maverick Room, was published by Graywolf Press and won the John C. Zacharis First Book Award from Ploughshares.[9]
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.[10]
He is also the author of a chapbook The Genuine Negro Hero (Kent State University Press, 2001) and the chaplet Song On (Wintered Press 2005).[11]
Awards
Works
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
Anthologies
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
References
- ↑ Sarah Lawrence College > Graduate Studies in Writing Faculty
- ↑ Beltway Poetry Quarterly >Vol. 7 No. 3, Summer 2006 > Thomas Sayers Ellis
- ↑ Academy of American Poets > A Brief Guide to the Dark Room Collective
- ↑ Bios of 2005 Whiting Writer's Award Recipients
- ↑ AGNI Online > Notes Toward a New Duty Now for the Future: An Interview with Thomas Sayers Ellis > by Kelsea Habecker Smith
- ↑ AGNI Online > Author Bibliography: Thomas Sayers Ellis
- ↑ Graywolf Press Website > Author Page: Thomas Sayers Ellis
- ↑ 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
- ↑ Bios of 2005 Whiting Writer's Award Recipients
- ↑ Wintered Press Blog: Excerpt from Song On > By Thomas Sayers Ellis
- ↑ http://www.whiting.org/awards/winners/thomas-sayers-ellis#/
Sources
- Author Website
- 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
External links
- Publisher's Weekly: 'Identity Repair Poet: PW Talks with Thomas Sayers Ellis' (2010)
- 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
- Profile at The Whiting Foundation