The Passing of Thomas Sayers Ellis

A statement from Finn on the passing of his father, Thomas Sayers Ellis:

My father, Thomas Sayers Ellis, died on July 17 in St. Petersburg, FL, where he had been living for the last nine years. He was an artist in many forms – first and foremost a poet, a co-founder of the noted The Dark Room Collective and The Dark Room Reading Series, but also a photographer, lyricist and bandleader, as well as a college professor, editor and rabble rouser. With James Brandon Lewis, he co-founded the music-poetry band Heroes Are Gang Leaders. My father and his younger brother James Ellis were raised in Washington, D.C. by their parents, my grandparents, Thomas and Jeanette Ellis. As a teen attending Dunbar High School, he played timbales in a Go-Go band. His writing and photographing of the Go-Go scene here in DC was deep, formative and much celebrated.

He was a loving father. I’m his only child. He was a beautiful grandfather to my five daughters and wanted to spend more time with his great granddaughter.

My father lived his last years in Florida, snapping photos, publishing books with Arrowsmith Press and touring. We deeply mourn his sudden loss. We will announce memorial service plans at a later date. The world is a much less interesting place without my father. 

BOOKS BY TSE 

Crank Shaped Notes, Arrowsmith Books, 2021

The Corny Toys, Arrowsmith Press, 2018

Skin Inc.: Identity Repair Poems, Graywolf Press, 2010 

The Maverick Room, Graywolf Press, 2005

The Genuine Negro Hero, Kent State University Press, 2001

Take Three: AGNI New Poets Series, edited by Thomas Sayers Ellis, Larissa Szporluk, Joe Osterhaus, and Askold Melnyczuk, Graywolf Press, 1996

PHOTOGRAPHS (Books)

Paradise/Paradise Layered, SPMOP, 2023 

Mexico, MadHat Press, 2021 

AWARDS

Guggenheim Fellowship

American Book Award for Oral Literature (to Heroes Are Gang Leaders)

Whiting Award 

Zacharis First Book Award 

ALBUMS

HEROES ARE GANG LEADERS

LeAutoRoiOgraphy

Artificial Happiness Button

The Amiri Baraka Sessions

FLUKUM: “Your Book Sucks”–HAGL

Highest Engines Near/Near Higher Engineers

The AvantAge GardeIams of the GalLuxury