Poetry Review Essay

2 Pages 518 Words

“If it ain’t nasty, it ain’t funky”: the words of an extroverted and captivating poet by the name of Thomas Sayers Ellis. His style, an odd, yet interesting one, fascinated me, and made me realize poetry was more of an art form then I had previously thought. Actually going to a reading, and hear the poet speak with such a passionate tone to correctly convey the meanings of his poems. His style of reading definitely upped the quality of his poems. He said it himself, that when he was reading a poem aloud before, it sounded bad. With readings, I now realize it is pertinent to accent your poem the way you think it should to get the full meaning across. But don’t stop there. Mr. Ellis showed this through not only impeccable accenting, but also quite a musical tune for most of his irregular yet intriguing poems.
The poem “All Their Stanzas Look Alike” was a great one, in my opinion. It took simple sentence structure and amazed me with such intricateness. The lines “All their third worlds / All their world series / All their serial killers / All their killing fields / All their stanzas look alike”. The way he continues the last word with the next line is incredible. From third world, to world series, to serial killers, to killing fields, it was just really nice to see the continuation like that.
His poems as a body of work showed the unrelenting will to be unique, a trait I would like to adapt to my own style. One of my favorite poems from Mr. Ellis was “Atomic Bride”. The story comes from his friend Andre getting married, and then breaking up. It saddened Ellis. Thus the poem. A few of my favorite lines from the poem were a recurring type of line. The first line is an amazing association of war and how it influences music. The second line, an interesting way to portray about our government in relation to drugs.
“A good war starts
In the courtroom
And works its way
To the album cover.”


“A good drug s...