The Maverick Room.The Maverick Room by Thomas Sayers Ellis Thomas Sayers Ellis is a poet, photographer, and Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY and a core faculty member of the Lesley University Low Residency MFA Program in Cambridge, MA. Graywolf Press, January 2005 $14, ISBN ISBN abbr. International Standard Book Number ISBN International Standard Book Number ISBN n abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m 1-555-97414-7 It is difficult to imagine a place more fraught with contradictions than Washington, D.C. Rare, young poets have been able to take root in such soil. Few are able to flower with complex beauty. Thomas Sayers Ellis is such a poet and his debut collection, The Maverick Room, is a compendium of lyric gestures compressed into taught chords of meaning. The work represents a synthesis of influences that is difficult to critique without reference to genres outside literature. Ellis himself says his work reflects the combined influence of poet Gertrude Stein and George Clinton, the P-Funk all-star. Ellis's obsessions are diverse. While he writes about the culture of music, both performed and recorded, his poems aspire to performances of their own. Lines like "Go wiggle or go skate. / Only bait no feet to fail him," and titles such as "A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop" evince e·vince tr.v. e·vinced, e·vinc·ing, e·vinc·es To show or demonstrate clearly; manifest: evince distaste by grimacing. a performative per·for·ma·tive adj. Relating to or being an utterance that peforms an act or creates a state of affairs by the fact of its being uttered under appropriate or conventional circumstances, as a justice of the peace uttering quality. Ellis frequently sets a groove in motion through lean. percussive lines of verse. A musical "bridge" is affected in the poems by tonal shifts into aphoristic aph·o·rism n. 1. A tersely phrased statement of a truth or opinion; an adage. See Synonyms at saying. 2. A brief statement of a principle. proclamations worthy of Clinton (George) and that, as asides, tend to wink knowingly at the reader. In "My Autopsy," Ellis writes, "I refuse to write for more people / Than I can listen to." Many poems here are lyric narratives of his life in D.C. But these reflections also house his greater philosophical concerns with history and heritage. The poem "View of the Library of Congress From Paul Laurence Dunbar ''' Paul Laurence Dunbar (June 27, 1872 – February 9, 1906) was a seminal American poet of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Dunbar gained national recognition for his 1896 Lyrics of a Lowly Life, one poem in the collection being Ode to Ethiopia. High School" displays economy of language. Here the capitol's monuments museums and buildings are reduced to edifices distinguished by the fanny members who are or have been employed in them. Thus, Ellis comments upon the importance of our history, and the structure of our literary canon. Gregory Pardlo is a poet and translator who teaches at Medgar Evers College Medgar Evers College (MEC) is a college campus (offering bachelor's and associate's degrees) of The City University of New York. MEC was founded in 1970 through cooperation from educators and community leaders in central Brooklyn. in Brooklyn, New York |
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