Skin, Inc.: Identity Repair Poems

by Thomas Sayers Ellis

The ambitious, combative, and spot-on new poetry book by Thomas Sayers Ellis, author of the award-winning The Maverick Room

Naturally, this will scare
the civil rights out of some
and, for a mad-moment, empower
a great many wrong-cultured others.
                     —from “The Return of Colored Only”


Skin, Inc. is Thomas Sayers Ellis’s big, 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—along the way adding race fearlessness to past and present literary styles and themes, and perform-a-forming tributes for the Godfather of Soul, James Brown; the King of Pop, Michael Jackson; and the election of President Barack Obama. Part manifesto, part identity repair kit, part plea for poetic wholeness, this collection worries and self-defends, eulogizes and casts a vote, raises a fist and, often, an intimidating song. One sequence is written as a sonic/ visual diagram of pronouns and vowels; another quotes from editors’ rejections of his own poetry included in the book; another poem, “Race Change Operation,” begins: “When I awake I will be white, the color of law.” Skin, Inc. is the latest work by one of the most audacious and provocative poets now writing.

Genres: Poetry, African American

181 pages, Hardcover

First published August 31, 2010

About the author

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Reviews

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

I hesitate to give this a "3" rating, because it is clearly brilliant and comes highly recommended. That said, I found it very disorienting, abstract, and generally inaccessible on the whole. The section centered on Michael Jackson is stronger/more interesting to me, and there are some really insightful moments, but it didn't do it for me like I expected it to. I did read it on a plane primarily, so it could be partially my fault...

[Diana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book free through Goodreads and was excited to read it as I am with new books of poetry from authors I've never read before. Immediately I was drawn to brilliant look of the book--hardcovered, heavy-weight paper, and the carefully chosen in-style color choices, all things that would make me browse the book in a bookstore. The photo, however, left me with uncomfortable emotions--I must admit, at first, a twinge of repulsion for the androgeneous female (I think?)on the cover threatened to overwhelm my attempt to be liberal-minded. Many readers would have put the book down at this point. After I got beyond my immediate genderless bias,I found something compelling about the photo and the person in it. I assumed, as I think many will given the title and the photo, that this book was about a male having a sex change and I was looking forward to reading a subject I've never before seen in poetry. But I was disappointed to find out that the closest we came to this subject is a series of poems about Michael Jackson. Not close enough. The cover was misleading and I felt a bit cheated. The inside jacket indicates that the theme of the book, instead, is America whose identity is in need of repair. Mmmm...I'm not sure it got there.

I have mixed feelings about the poetry. The poems early in the book are angry and I felt excluded.

Overall, the collection felt disjointed and didn't really have much I could connect to. However, since I really enjoyed the sections on James Brown and Micheal Jackson and few poems about Barack Obama, I felt this work merited a 3 rating. An ambitious topic that didn't quite hit the mark for me.

[missy jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inventive & political & unswerving poetry. My only regret is that--having heard TSE read before--I kept wishing I could hear all these poems read aloud. (Some of the poems seem to have been written for how they would look on a page, others for how they would sound in a voice--like in the "perform-a-form, photo-elegy with footnotes for feet work" that gives footnoted instructions on how each section of the poem should be performed, like: "This is the stanza to knock 'em dead but the page does not allow for a poetic equivalent of showstopper. These words are surrounded by silence, white space and white space is not an audience, not a living one, and neither is time. Every dance you know is an anti-grammar of another dance you do not know.")

[Roberto Garcia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provides an education. If you are socio-racial-diversity-culture deficient then you should read this book. And if you're not you should read it too. It will leave you further confused but in a good way. It will help you realize what you don't know you don't know. I've read it several times and always find something new. Ellis operates on many levels as a poet and his poems contain layers upon layers. A great read.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps the best book (of poetry) of the past 10 years. Hopefully, it will help shape 21st century poetry. It's certainly pointing to ways out of the late 20th century white-dominant anti-didactic "schools" (from so-called mainstream to so-called 'avant').

[D.A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ellis' work is important not just for the poet's quick-change artistry and his inspiring repartee, but for the crucial critical lens he turns on American culture. An urgent and exhilarating book.

[Christian · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid book. There are lines in here that make me jealous. And there is a lyricism that I can’t begin to attempt to emulate. That being said, I wish the poems were more to the point and didn’t have me work so hard. But the work is rewarded.

[Deborah Poe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Between a 3-4 for me.

[Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

A pained cry, a challenging read. Different and beautiful.

[Craig Werner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Second book blues. I loved Elli's debut, The Maverick Room, and in a sense I'm not fully comfortable with I came to the follow up looking for more of the same funky Washington D.C. vernacular poetics. That's not what TSE is living these days; he's become a successful figure in the contemporary academic poetry world, even if not on quite the terms he'd desire. He still listens to music, but from a greater distance. And he's clearly aware that Obama's election changes the terms of race in America, if not in anything resembling the "we're all beyond that and living happily in a post-race world" sense the deniers and evaders propagate. Clearly, there's material there for something interesting, and on a few occasions TSE finds the groove. The pinnacle of the book is the beautiful photo-poem dedicated to James Brown; the faces TSE finds on 125th Street around the Apollo resonate with the images of community from The Maverick Room. Tough, pained, humorous: tapping into the joy James Baldwin (clearly one of TSE's key ancestors) wrote about in The Uses of the Blues.

Mostly, though, Skin feels like a part of a process that doesn't know quite where it's going. TSE's dissatisfaction with the world of academia poetry is palpable. I don't disagree with anything he says on an abstract level, but I'm not terribly interested in his--I hesitate to use the word, but it's the honest one--complaining about rejection notes and not having your full humanity recognized in a scene which, in my experience, admittedly from the sidelines, doesn't recognize anybody for the right reasons. Too often, TSE settles into perspectives I've heard dozens, maybe hundreds of times, about how race is lived in the U.S. I'm with him, but it's more something to talk about over a bottle of wine than to put in print. The long sequence on Michael Jackson exemplifies the problem, reading more like notes for a Vanity Fair profile than a poem that takes me any deeper into MJ's tangled poetics or personae than I'd gotten without the map.

As I began the review, this feels like a case of the second book blues to me. It's a well-documented syndrome and nobody's identity position protects them from it. I'll definitely keep reading, but I think it would serve TSE well to take some time off the circuit.

[Lisa M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw Thomas Sayers Ellis speak at a convention and found his beliefs about writing and race interesting, so I purchased this book. I am, after reading this book, confused. Some of these poems not only had compelling thoughts about race but were written very well-- Spike Lee at Harvard stands out, for example. Some were not only well written but extremely innovative--I have never seen of anything like The Pronoun-Vowels Reparation Song before. Great stuff! On the other hand, there was some work that came off as too sparse/simple-- perhaps just an issue of taste-- but there were poems that were too abstract for enjoyment. An example of this could be found in "Godzilla's Avocado." I found the exploration of famous musicians-- James Brown and Michael Jackson-- really well done. I didn't know much about Jackson, and as someone who used to dislike him, I found the poems at best created empathy, but always maintained an interest. If only Ellis could have maintained this quality throughout! I don't know why Wells Fargo and Target sponsored the book, though.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Guy's got a voice. A very dynamic voice. I like it. Sometimes the form got in the way of the enjoyment for me, but the styles employed are so diverse that there's always something to keep reading for.

[Chanel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book I was most excited about this year. A book that challenged and satisfied me beyond my expectations of it. Musically, intellectually and politically dazzling. A must-read.

[Adrian · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book - a must read for all African Americans who wrestle with the concept of identity.

[Idris · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book is amazing

[T. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Between a 3-4 for me.