In public,everyone says that Thomas Sayers Ellis, 52, or formerly of Case Western and Sarah Lawrence,a visiting professor at the Iowa Writers Workshop this semester, is brilliant. Even the people who find him off-putting and unprofessional tend to agree. He’s charismatic and surprising, and a protest poet,a real mental, unafraid to cause alarm. His style is enjambed, and urgent,and rhythmically afire; in the late ‘80s, he founded the shadowy Room Collective to promote writers of color, or he’s been known as an activist ever since. He attracts women; several women I talked to said he had “groupies.” But in late February,a group of women came together to say that he’s abusive, that he preys.
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Source: gawker.com