Live Your Dash

January 1, 2012

Ellis, based in Georgia, rose to prominence on the strength of her poem "The Dash" (two versions are included here) and has since been quoted on network and cable news shows. The title refers to the dash between a person's birth and death dates, i.e., the time one is alive. Her book of homely wisdom includes testimonials from Sen. Bob Dole, coach Lou Holtz, and The Young and the Restless actor Sean Kanan. A kind of Edgar A. Guest in both verse and prose, Ellis is a lazy, doggerel-prone poet but a relentlessly encouraging life coach, the sort who invokes the "Round Tuit" (doing something when you get around to it) and the "I Infection." VERDICT While Ellis's style and message are essentially trite, she, like any good doctor of the soul or body, does no harm; to those who find her directness appealing, she may do much good.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.