Aster of Ceremonies (2023)
book (softcover, 144 pages, 9 × 7 × 0.25 in)
audiobook (read by the author, 6 hours and 18 minutes)
performance (duration variable)
Supported in part by Creative Capital.
Select performance presentations:
Harvard University, September 2023
Yale Schwarzman Center, January 2024
Bemis Center, March 2024
University of Illinois, April 2024
E-WERK Luckenwalde, May 2024
Whitney Museum, July 2024
PICA TBA Festival, September 2024
Read Sean Beckford's reflections on an Aster of Ceremonies performance.
Read Diane R. Wiener's review of the book.
The cover of this book shows a hand-drawn illustration of a Plant with pale purple-blue flowers (the word “Plant” is capitalized in this book as a way of showing respect to botanical life). This Plant is known by several names, including Glaucous Aster and Symphyotrichum laeve. The drawing was made by the British illustrator Sydenham Edwards (1768–1819). The silhouetted illustration appears over a lavender background with rows of white asterisks that evoke lines of text. Six white rectangles are scattered on the lavender background as well. They bear black text that reads (one word per rectangle): “Aster of Ceremonies Poems JJJJJEROME ELLIS.” The cover was designed by Mary Austin Speaker.
This is a page from Aster of Ceremonies. Four musical staves are set at angles to each other, creating an enclosure. Inside the enclosure is black text that reads "the Rose of the stutter / shall GRO / through the fence / of prose."
JJJJJerome stands on a stage holding a saxophone. They face a screen that reads “the art of the stutter / is to utter in time / not on time” “[Tonal sleep—two drop perhaps underswimming.]” “I am so grateful to you, Iya Milta Vega Cardona, for teaching me about being in time.” On the stage is an upright piano with a stuffed hippo named Hildegard sitting on it. A purple light shines from above.
JJJJJerome Ellis, Aster of Ceremonies, 4 May 2024, E-WERK Luckenwalde. Presented as part of The Drop Out: Tell them I said No, Photo by Stefan Korte.
Photo by Filip Wolak. JJJJJerome stands in front of a screen that reads "give me a speech impediment / that I may notice / Asters". JJJJJerome speaks to an audience. The room is bathed in purple light. An ASL interpreter stands next to a smaller screen.