Skin, Inc.: Identity Repair Poems [Hardcover]

Thomas Sayers Ellis (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 31, 2010

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Ellis's highly anticipated second collection has a bit of everything: poems in an array of forms--a concrete poem meditating on the English vowels and money, an abecedarian list of "Black Writing" terminology, a photo essay shot at the James Brown memorial at Harlem's Apollo Theatre; prose poems; meditations on New Yorker covers; and lots more. Throughout, Ellis (The Maverick Room) makes a complicated, often contradictory critique of race relations in America; he has as many self-corrections to put into practice, "sucker-punching I," as he does punches aimed at others: "One of these badass/ glorious days,/ the signs and negative sounds/ that worked against us/ will all begin their tenures/ of service.../ It has already begun with/ ÿNigger' and ÿBitch.' " While much of his work would be right at home on a spoken-word stage--Ellis is an extraordinary reader of his poems--he feels deeply uneasy about the pigeonholing of black poetry, "as if the craft of our/ inherited calling had only/ two camps of Blackness,/ ÿAcademic' and ÿSpoken Word.' " This big book concludes with an amazing 35-page biography/elegy for Michael Jackson and the era through which he lived, and which he deeply affected. No doubt, this is a major book.
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From Booklist

Ellis positions himself between the two primary schools of contemporary poetry (not only African American poetry, although the divide is especially noticeable there), which he defines as “Academic” and “Spoken Word” in his poem “No Easy Trick.” The “trick” is to bridge those apparent opposites, which he does superlatively in his second full collection. The cadence of speech is audible on the page, in his “uneven ribs of verse” that worry “text to talk and talk to text.” In the searing tradition of Ai, Ellis takes on the thorny questions of race and culture, and never mincing words about the damage racism has done: “If punctuation / were a punch, / I’d publish line breaks of fists.” But he sees poets as “identity repair-people, / faders of trick moves, trope-a-dopes / and okee dokes, / laying our dice down like ( ) like we love us.” A photographer as well as a poet, Ellis includes a sequence that combines the two art forms in homage to James Brown; another sequence explores the complex image and tragic reality of Michael Jackson’s life. Ellis’s distinctive voice offers a new model for written orature, and his audience steadily widens. --Patricia Monaghan

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Graywolf Press (August 31, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555975674
• ISBN-13: 978-1555975678
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #716,320 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars For YOU May 6, 2012

By Dan Roeder

Format:Hardcover

"Skin, Inc.," the newest collection of poetry from Thomas Sayers Ellis, is a truly remarkable, thrilling collection of what the author would call "Identity Repair" case studies. Ellis not only uses his poems to create vibrant images, but navigates the reader through the book with an film director's cinematic grace and nuance. Ellis interweaves his focus between himself, the nation at large and case studies of influential black luminaries throughout pop culture history (including James Brown, Michael Jackson and President Obama) and dissects his subjects in such a way that they become universal figures. His moments of insight are genuinely unexpected and exciting to the reader to the point where, if the reader isn't careful, one might end up dog-earring each page.
One such dog-ear rampage may occur throughout "Spike Lee at Harvard," where Ellis details his days as shipping clerk at Grolier Book Store, "employed in a corner/slim enough for a book." He peppers these anecdotes with beautiful imagery ("Ai, interrupting/the white typeface/of American detachment./ A single profile of personas/like a caesura/in buttermilk") and comments on racial boundaries and poetic clarity.
More still may appear throughout "Mr. Dynamite Splits," his marriage of photo-journalism and poetry in homage to James Brown, or in "Gone Pop," his dissection of Michael Jackson and the Jackson family. Ellis takes these larger than life figures and focuses in on all of the things that make them human; their families, their failings. One of his particularly poignant moments comes when waxing on Jermaine Jackson's departure from his brother's group: "sometimes it takes a legal battle/to be loved."
Ellis then goes beyond traditional structure in "The Pronoun-Vowel Reparations Song," which dissects, enlarges and arranges the alphabet in a colorful abstraction of identity intended to illuminate and eliminate the boundaries created by racial constructs. Still, for all of the book's personal themes and lofty aims, it never leaves its audience out of sight. One of the biggest highlights, "No Easy Task," delves into the divide between spoken and written poetry and goes beyond the task at hand as he provides a startling insight into the human condition: "but mostly, we just wanted to be whole (respected and known) and heard (reviewed and enjoyed)... and not always as lonely as an "I" and not always as burdened as a "we"." The dedication to the collection reads "FOR YOU," and indeed it is.

3.0 out of 5 stars Hot and Cold Equal Lukewarm March 15, 2013

By Gordon Hilgers

Format:Hardcover

Seriously? The wordplay is incisive albeit sans meaning or any emotive content at all, which is fine in a world where meaning and emotion are two inherently importune exhibitionistic tendencies.

3.0 out of 5 stars Skin Inc. March 7, 2012

By rosens1

Format:Hardcover

SKIN INC. REVIEW

Thomas Sayers' Skin Inc. is a blistering meditation on identity, both personal and collective. The conceptualization of the self and the way African Americans are seen by society are major concerns in this collection. Sayers' almost combative tone lends weight to his sentiments in lines such as, "These genres these borders these borders these false distinctions are where we stay at, in freedoms way." The clarity and power of his voice make this collection a lot more fun than your average political discussion. Sayers gracefully treads the line between bombastic and tasteful, never fully given to obtuseness or ranting. "In life," he writes, "they clutch their purses because they want to think you've stolen something." This sort of line encapsulates Sayers' ability to articulate his disgust with both the fact of race and the way it affects his people. He is at once upset with the lines drawn by race, "shut up about sameness, shut up about difference," and inexorably wrapped up in his own, "Blackness freedoms to defend me." This paradox makes for an interesting, if slightly grating read, only due to the narrowness of subject matter. Sayers occasionally gives us a break from his tirades in pieces such as, "Spike Lee at Harvard," which is an engrossing autobiographical snippet. All told, Sayers has produced a passionate, caustic, but slightly overwhelming collection that definitely deserves an audience.