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The Maverick Room: Poems
With its defiance for any one tradition or voice, Thomas Sayers Ellis's debut becomes a powerful argument against monotony A dream. A democracy. A savage liberty.
And yet another anthem and yet another heaven
and yet another party wants you.
Wants you wants you wants you.
―from "Groovallegiance" 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.
And yet another anthem and yet another heaven
and yet another party wants you.
Wants you wants you wants you.
―from "Groovallegiance" 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.
- GenresPoetryAfrican American
120 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
March 31, 2008
Sayers Ellis grew up in Washington, DC in the era of Watergate, Vietnam, and Home Rule. He notes that "if poets are made up of the voices they hear, [his:] would be Richard Nixon's." Sayers Ellis studied here in the Northeast. One of his noted accomplishments was to found the Dark Room Collective, a group of African-American writers living communally in a house on Inman Street in Cambridge.
Sayers Ellis is a poet who turns musical scores into words and phrases with his pen. His work lives on rhythm. He relates a story of being on the road with Grandmaster of Funk George Clinton. Clinton confided that he'd "arrived at funk by 'speeding up the blues.'" Sayers Ellis decided to do the same with his "Atomic Bride"--a modern riff on a classic form, the villanelle.
Much of The Maverick Room contains what Sayers Ellis calls "identity repair" poems such as "No Easy Task" and "The Dollar Signs of Autumn." He's spent decades figuring out how to be "black" in a poem: "First, you'll need a talk, then a kind of walk."
Although his work is racially conscious, to suggest that Sayers Ellis limits the political content of his poems to the issue of race is to fall into the trap of skin-deep analysis—something his writing works hard to defy. "All Their Stanzas Look Alike" digs at all the formal institutions of literature: from poet laureates to rejection letters, writing contests to tenure tracks, the Caucasian queen of literary criticism, Helen Vendler, to the self-made African-American Empress of the book club, Oprah Winfrey.
Sayers Ellis is a poet who turns musical scores into words and phrases with his pen. His work lives on rhythm. He relates a story of being on the road with Grandmaster of Funk George Clinton. Clinton confided that he'd "arrived at funk by 'speeding up the blues.'" Sayers Ellis decided to do the same with his "Atomic Bride"--a modern riff on a classic form, the villanelle.
Much of The Maverick Room contains what Sayers Ellis calls "identity repair" poems such as "No Easy Task" and "The Dollar Signs of Autumn." He's spent decades figuring out how to be "black" in a poem: "First, you'll need a talk, then a kind of walk."
Although his work is racially conscious, to suggest that Sayers Ellis limits the political content of his poems to the issue of race is to fall into the trap of skin-deep analysis—something his writing works hard to defy. "All Their Stanzas Look Alike" digs at all the formal institutions of literature: from poet laureates to rejection letters, writing contests to tenure tracks, the Caucasian queen of literary criticism, Helen Vendler, to the self-made African-American Empress of the book club, Oprah Winfrey.
July 13, 2007
Jazz had its army of poems and poets. Hip-hop has its army of poems and poets. In Thomas Sayers Ellis' Maverick Room, funk finally gets its due. He brings the scene and memory of growing up impoverished in Washington D.C. in the shadow of the White House in the richest country on Earth, and pairs that youth with a rhythm and verse of political and neighborhood lyric with a bass line meter and soaring guitar breaks.
The beauty and fire of The Maverick Room doesn't stop there, however. Ellis moves from form to form, keeping lines quick and unornamental, or letting them weigh down with density. He lets the form sit in tradition, or frees it to give and take from all the space on the page it needs.
Ellis lets his language create fast flowing idea, and those ideas become image and emotion. Culture and cultures float in and out in half reference -- everything from movies to music, art to clothing fads -- in half reference. Without a heavy hand, The Maverick Room combines that culture with sometimes subtle, sometimes not, shout-outs to Amiri Baraka, Robert Hayden, Bob Kaufman, and other forebears. And bringing together Baraka and Hayden is like overcoming physics -- something Thomas Sayers Ellis does time and time again in this book.
The beauty and fire of The Maverick Room doesn't stop there, however. Ellis moves from form to form, keeping lines quick and unornamental, or letting them weigh down with density. He lets the form sit in tradition, or frees it to give and take from all the space on the page it needs.
Ellis lets his language create fast flowing idea, and those ideas become image and emotion. Culture and cultures float in and out in half reference -- everything from movies to music, art to clothing fads -- in half reference. Without a heavy hand, The Maverick Room combines that culture with sometimes subtle, sometimes not, shout-outs to Amiri Baraka, Robert Hayden, Bob Kaufman, and other forebears. And bringing together Baraka and Hayden is like overcoming physics -- something Thomas Sayers Ellis does time and time again in this book.
August 15, 2023
One of the most exciting poetry volumes I've had the pleasure of wrestling with. Ellis offers a spacey, funky, surreal ode to the likes of Sun Ra and Parliament-Funkadelic, and really, a whole genealogy of Black music and letters here, with Bob Kaufman standing out as another influence. His writing, being informed by that hybrid space of pop and experimental culture, takes shape through a play with repetition and abstraction we feel most forcible in the later salvos of "My Own - Stones" and "Groovallegiance," the latter of which reads, in part:
Two parties.
One Washington.
One Washington.
Two parties.
A million marchers.
An afterparty.
An afterparty after marching.
The aftermath.
An aftermath-afterparty after marching
all the way to Washington.
Another march another party.
Another aftermarch after another afterparty.
After another afterparty after marching.
After another march afterpartying and after marching
all the way to Washington.
Always Washington always Washington.
Uncle Jam, enjambed
all the way to Washington.
After all that marching after all that partying.
Uncle Jam, enjambed.
Always Washington.
A million marchers.
Two parties.
The repetition in some of these poems is grating, and necessarily so. A master wrangling his craft to explode the confines of form, somehow, through this turn to the minimal. When I read the first part of "My Own - Stones," Heads (All Caps), 1989, I felt a similar and yet different play with such style:
HEAD FACE UP
HEAD FACE DOWN
FACE WALL
FACE FLOOR
FACE TORTURE
FACE HEAD
ON FINGERS
FACE HEAD
ON HEAD
FACE FINGERS
FACE TONGUE
ON NOSE
FACE DOUBLE SIZE HEADS
FACE SCALP
FACING SCALP
BALANCE HEAD
ON HEAD
BALANCE HEAD
ON HAND
BALANCE TWO HEADS
ON TWO HANDS
NAIL HANDS
HANG HEADS
BREAK ARMS
BALANCE PENCIL
ON PAPER
BUY CATALOG
Just a snippet, Ellis employs a visual performance as if the words have been stenciled somewhere (I'm reminded of Glenn Ligon's visual-textual productions), working through absurd fragmentation of body parts to get however close to the violence of commodified people (the terrifyingly absurd yet real machination of the modern world). Many of Ellis' poems have a humor to them, despite the context, a humor that is occasionally cruel but always in service of funkifying Black expression. His style doesn't give much up for the potentially unsympathetic reader, but you have to swerve far from convention when you're penning stuff like "All Their Stanzas Look Alike" (the first poem of his to win me over; I won't print here but its available online).
Other Favorites: "A Pack of Cigarettes" / The Maverick Room (a 'suite' of poems, if you will, best taken in one go) / "Bright Moments" / "T.A.P.O.A.F.O.M. (The Awesome Power of a Fully Operational Memory)" / "The Dollar Signs of Autumn"
Two parties.
One Washington.
One Washington.
Two parties.
A million marchers.
An afterparty.
An afterparty after marching.
The aftermath.
An aftermath-afterparty after marching
all the way to Washington.
Another march another party.
Another aftermarch after another afterparty.
After another afterparty after marching.
After another march afterpartying and after marching
all the way to Washington.
Always Washington always Washington.
Uncle Jam, enjambed
all the way to Washington.
After all that marching after all that partying.
Uncle Jam, enjambed.
Always Washington.
A million marchers.
Two parties.
The repetition in some of these poems is grating, and necessarily so. A master wrangling his craft to explode the confines of form, somehow, through this turn to the minimal. When I read the first part of "My Own - Stones," Heads (All Caps), 1989, I felt a similar and yet different play with such style:
HEAD FACE UP
HEAD FACE DOWN
FACE WALL
FACE FLOOR
FACE TORTURE
FACE HEAD
ON FINGERS
FACE HEAD
ON HEAD
FACE FINGERS
FACE TONGUE
ON NOSE
FACE DOUBLE SIZE HEADS
FACE SCALP
FACING SCALP
BALANCE HEAD
ON HEAD
BALANCE HEAD
ON HAND
BALANCE TWO HEADS
ON TWO HANDS
NAIL HANDS
HANG HEADS
BREAK ARMS
BALANCE PENCIL
ON PAPER
BUY CATALOG
Just a snippet, Ellis employs a visual performance as if the words have been stenciled somewhere (I'm reminded of Glenn Ligon's visual-textual productions), working through absurd fragmentation of body parts to get however close to the violence of commodified people (the terrifyingly absurd yet real machination of the modern world). Many of Ellis' poems have a humor to them, despite the context, a humor that is occasionally cruel but always in service of funkifying Black expression. His style doesn't give much up for the potentially unsympathetic reader, but you have to swerve far from convention when you're penning stuff like "All Their Stanzas Look Alike" (the first poem of his to win me over; I won't print here but its available online).
Other Favorites: "A Pack of Cigarettes" / The Maverick Room (a 'suite' of poems, if you will, best taken in one go) / "Bright Moments" / "T.A.P.O.A.F.O.M. (The Awesome Power of a Fully Operational Memory)" / "The Dollar Signs of Autumn"
July 20, 2012
Really good first book. I'd definitely like to hear it read aloud, but it comes from an African American musical tradition I'm familiar enough with to take it at least part way to the stage. Ellis structures the book around the quadrants of his hometown Washington D.C. with a central section, same title as the book, on the clubs that bring the tribes together. I love the P-Funk references--Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadooloops (take that, spell check) to the Thumpasaurus People.
Ellis is to funk what Langston Hughes was to the blues.
Ellis is to funk what Langston Hughes was to the blues.
September 28, 2009
I learned a lot about DC, the members of P-Funk and random black intelligensia/literati from googling the people the poems were dedicated to. It took me longer to do that (being a nerd) than it did to read the book. I think this book might get a higher rating from a fan of the music TSE's a fan of, or a DC native; I'd certainly recommend the book. I happen to love this dude personally- he is the coolest MF I have probably ever met and I give HIM 5 stars. Can't wait for the next book.
April 26, 2010
I think I need to hear these read aloud. I had trouble hearing them in my brain by only reading them. Loved the content of the poems & politics behind them, but had trouble connecting with the form itself. Educate me, plz! How should I read these?
January 25, 2008
Too impersonal. Too thought out. Give us some heart Thomas, even if you don't use the word, use the organ a bit.
July 27, 2008
Just finished a workshop with this man: awesome!
August 15, 2012
Groovy, musical and journeylicious. The poems about Go-Go musicians and Go-Go history are mesmerizing. A great read.
June 16, 2008
Infiltrated by jazz.
November 4, 2011
SIX WORD REVIEW: Black and Hip-Hop in DC's backyard.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews