Clarence Major

Clarence Major (born 1936) is an African-American poet, painter, and novelist.

Clarence Major self-portrait, 1986. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Life

Youth and education

Major was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and grew up in Chicago.

As a teenager he was influenced by the monumental Van Gogh Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago, February 1-April 16, 1950.

Major has attended or received degrees from the following institutions:

• Art Institute of Chicago (James Nelson Raymond scholar), 1952-54
• Gus Nall Studio, Private Art Lessons 1952-1954
• The New School for Social Research (French course only) 1971.
• Norwalk Community College, Norwalk Connecticut, 1972.
• Howard University, Washington D. C., 1974-1975
• State University of New York, Albany, B.S. 1976.
• Union Institute and University, Yellow Springs and Cincinnati, Ohio, Ph.D. 1978.

Career

In his early 20s, Major began publishing his own literary magazine, Coercion Review, which featured poets and writers such as Henry Miller, Kenneth Patchen, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

After a stint in the Air Force, 2 marriages, children, and 2 divorces, he left the Midwest and moved to New York City. His debut novel, All Night Visitors, was published in 1969 and his debut collection of poems, Swallow the Lake, in 1970.

Major briefly worked as a research analyst for Simulmatics, under the direction of sociologist Dr. Sol Chaneles. Major analyzed news coverage of the 1960s riots. He also did field work on the riots, in Detroit and Milwaukee, before turning, in 1967, to teaching.

Initially he taught in Harlem at the New Lincoln School, in a summer program. He later taught modern American literature courses and creative writing workshops in universities. Although he had shown a few paintings in group shows at Gales Gallery in Chicago during the 1960s, his earliest solo exhibition of paintings was at Sarah Lawrence College in the library in the early 1970s.

During this time he was also giving public readings of his poetry. He served on the editorial staff of several literary periodicals and wrote a regular column for American Poetry Review. He was the 1st editor of American Book Review. He read his poetry at the Guggenheim Museum, the Folger Theater and in universities, theaters and cultural centers.

He joined the Fiction Collective in 1974. Major edited High Plains Literary Review for several years. On a State Department sponsored trip in 1975 he was a participant at the International Poetry Festival in Struga, Yugoslavia, where he read his work with Leopold Sedar Senghor and other poets from around the world. In 1977, with John Ashbery and other poets from various countries, Major read at the Poetry International in Rotterdam, Holland. Although he had been painting all along, after moving to California in 1989 he showed his paintings more frequently in galleries.

Major has taught literature and/or creative writing at Brooklyn College, Queens College, Sarah Laurence College, University of Washington, Howard University, University of Maryland, University of Colorado, Temple University, the State University of New York at Binghamton, and the University of California at Davis. On a Fulbright-Hays Exchange award he taught American culture at the University of Nice, in France, 1981-1983. He left the University of Colorado in 1989 and then taught at the University of California Davis for 18 years before his retirement in 2007.

In 1991 Major served as fiction judge for the National Book Awards. In 1987 he served twice on the National Endowment for The Arts Awards panels; and in 1997-98 he served as judge for the Pen/Faulkner awards. He has judged state sponsored literary contests in Ohio, New York, Washington, Colorado and California.

Major is professor emeritus of 20th. Century American Literature at the University of California at Davis. His literary archives are in the Givens Collection, Anderson Library of Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota. For what Professor Linda Furgerson Selzer calls a "groundbreaking study" of Clarence Major's art and work one can turn to Keith E. Byerman's book, The Art and Life of Clarence Major, Athens: University of Georgia Press (June 2012).

Anthologies

He has edited several anthologies, most recently, Calling the Wind: 20th Century African-American Short Stories (1993) and The Garden Thrives: 20th Century African-American Poetry (1996).

His own work has appeared in the following anthologies: The Norton Anthology of American Literature, The Norton Anthology of African-American Literature, Postmodern Poetry in America 1950 to the Present, Men of Our Time: Male Poetry in Contemporary America, Dynamics of Violence, Up Late: American Poetry Since 1970, The World's Best Poetry: Supplement IV, Words On The Page, The World In Your Hands, Mirrors: An Introduction to Literature, The Urban Adventures, American Negro Poetry, Where Is Vietnam: American Poets Respond, In A Time of Revolution: Poems From Our Third World, Poems of War Resistance, A Punishment For Peace,Natural Process: An Anthology of New Black Poetry,Black Out Loud: An Anthology of Modern Poems by Black Americans, Inside Outer Space: New Poems From The Space Age,Soulscript: Afro-American Poetry, The Movement Toward a New America, Dices or Black Bones: Black Voices of The Seventies, Black American Literature 1780-Present, Fine Frenzy: Enduring Themes in Poetry, The Modern Age: Literature, The Real Imagination,You Better Believe It: Black Voices in English, Black Spirits: A Festival of New Black Poets in America,New Black Voices, Starting With Poetry, From The Belly of The Shark, The Poetry of Black America: Anthology of the 20th Century,Open Poetry: Four Anthologies of Expanded Poems, The Liberal Art of Interpretation, A New Rhetoric, The Pushcart Prize: The Best of The Small Presses, Contemporary Writing from The Continents, The Point: Where Teaching and Writing Intersect, The Jazz Poetry Anthology; Giavani Poeti Americani (Italy), Heartshape in the Dust: An Anthology of Black American Poetry (Yugoslavia),American Poets Say Goodbye to The 20th Century, Gondola a Signore Signore Gondola: Venice in 20th Century American Poetry (Italy), Govereci Boben (Poland?) The Writing on The Wall, Merry Christmas Baby and others. Fiction: Children of The Night, American Made, Calling the Wind, The Avant Garde Today: An international Anthology, Statements, Statements 2, The Sound of Writing, Pushcart XV, Breaking Ice, 19 Necromancers From Now, Ten Times Black: Stories From The Black Experience, Not Normal Illinois, American Made, Love Stories and Writing Under Fire: Stories Of The Vietnam War and others.

Periodicals

His fiction, poetry, nonfiction and book reviews have appeared in periodicals, including, in the United States, the New York Times, New York Times Book Review, Washington Post Book World, Los Angeles Times Book Review, TAmerican Poetry Review, Black Scholar, Baltimore Sun Magazine Supplement, Upstate [Rochester] Sunday Magazine, Denver Post, Hampton Road Guide and Journal, Rocky Mountain News, The San Jose Mercury News, Essence, Massachusetts Review, Chelsea, Ploughshares,Witness, Boulevard, Michigan Quarterly Review, Review of Contemporary Fiction, Trace, Negro Digest, Nickel Review, [Chicago] Sun-Times Showcase, John O'Hare Journal, American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, New Myths/MSS, American Review, Magazine of New Writing, Contact, Folger Poetry Broadside, Literary Review, Mundus Artium, National Guardian, New York Poetry, The Outsider, Poetry Miscellany, Unmuzzled Ox, Yardbird Reader, Works, Callaloo, African-American Review, New American Review, and Brilliant Corners, A Gathering of The Trides; and internationally in Baa Sima (Accra), Black Orpheus (Nigeria), El carno emplumado (Mexico), East and West (India), Fiddlehead (Canada), Gedicht (Antwerp), Interspace (France) In Their Own Words (Italy), New Departures (England), Poetry (England), Pravda (Moscow), Quadrant (Australia), Tautara (Turkey), Vinduet (Norway), Literatura na Swiecie (Poland), and others.

Visual arts

Major studied drawing and painting under the direction of painter Gus Nall from 1952 to 1954. He also attended sketch and lecture classes during the same period in Fullerton Hall at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Solo exhibitions of his work have been held at Pierre Menard Gallery, Harvard Square, Cambridge, University Art Gallery Indiana State University,Terre Haute, Sarah Lawrence College, Kresge Art Museum,East Lansing, Michigan,Hamilton Club Gallery, Paterson, New Jersey, Phoenix Gallery, Sacramento CA, Exploding Head Gallery, Sacramento CA, Blue Hills Gallery, Winters,CA, Main Street Gallery, Winters CA, and many other venues.

His paintings are in many private and several public collections. The public collections are Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Passaic County Community College Permanent Collection of Contemporary Art and the Schacknow Museum of Fine Art, Plantation, Florida.

His paintings have also appeared in many group shows at such galleries as John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis CA, University of Rochester Art Gallery,Rochester New York, Denenberg Fine Arts Gallery, Los Angeles, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, New York, New York, 40 Acres Gallery, Sacramento, CA, Main Street Gallery, Winters, CA.

Many of his paintings have appeared on covers of his own books, among them, Myself Painting and Waiting for Sweet Betty, 2 books of poems. His novel, Emergency Exit contains reproductions of his paintings, and his essay collection, Necessary Distance, is illustrated with his drawings. A book about his art and literature, Clarence Major and His Art: Portraits of an African-American postmodernist by Bernard Bell, appeared in 1998. Conversations with Clarence Major by Nancy Bunge was published in 2002. While focused largely on literature, both books contain Major's views on painting.

Major curated the exhibition of paintings, "Spirit Made Visible," containing the works of Robert Colescott, John Abduljaami, Mike Henderson, Oliver Jackson, Mary Lovelace O'Neal, Joe Overstreet, Raymond Saunders, Clarence Major and others, at the John Natsolulas Gallery, Davis, California, May 9-31 1992.

Recognition

In 1970 Major won a National Council on the Arts Award for his poetry collection, Swallow the Lake. The following year he was awarded a New York Cultural Foundation grant for poetry. "Reflexe e Ossature (1982), the French translation of "Reflex and Bone Structure" (1975) was nominated for Le Prix Maurice Coindreau prize (1982). "Such Was The Season ((1987) was a selection of The Literary Guild book club in 1988. The same year The New York Times Book Review recommended it on its annual "Summer Reading" list. "Painted Turtle: Woman With Guitar (1988) was cited by The New York Times Book Review as a "Notable Book of The Year" 1988. Major won a Bronze Medal as a finalist for the National Book Award in 1999 for Configurations: New and Selected Poems 1958-1998 (Copper Canyon Press). He won the Pushcart Prize for the short story, "My Mother and Mitch," in 1989. In 2002 he won the Stephen Henderson Poetry Award for Outstanding Achievement. His novel, My Amputations (1986) won the Western States Book Award and was republished in 2008 with an introduction by Lawrence Hogue. "Dirty Bird Blues" won the Sister Circle Book Award in 1999. Major was awarded The International Literary Hall of Fame award (Chicago State University) in 2001.

• Grant, Struga Yugoslavia International Poetry Festival-U. S. State Department Educational & Cultural Exchange Program, 1975.
• Grant, Fulbright-Hays Inter-University Exchange Award: Franco-American Commission for Educational Exchange--Nice, France, 1981-1983
• Grant, United Kingdom Educational Commission, London, England, 1981.
• Grant, International Communication Agency, American Embassy, London, England, 1982.
• Grant, Commission for Education and Cultural Exchange Between Italy and the U. S. of America, Rome, Italy, 1982.
• Grant, Africa Regional Services, United States International Communication Agency, Paris, France, 1982.
• Grant, IREX (Poland cultural trip) 1984.
• Grant, U. S. Information Service, American Embassy, Paris, France, 1985.

Publications

Poetry

• The Fires That Burn in Heaven. Chicago, 1954.
• Love Poems of a Black Man. Omaha, NE: Coercion, 1965.
• Human Juices. Omaha, NE: Coercion, 1966.
• Swallow the Lake. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1970.
• Symptoms and Madness. New York: Corinth Books, 1971.
• Private Line. London: Paul Breman, 1971.
• The Cotton Club. Detroit, MI: Broadside Press, 1972.
• The Syncopated Cakewalk. New York: Barlenmir, 1974.
• Inside Diameter: The France poems. London & New York: Permanent Press, 1985.
• Surfaces and Masks. Minneapolis, MN: Coffee House Press, 1987.
• Some Observations of a Stranger at Zuni in the Latter Part of the Century. Los Angeles, CA: Sun & Moon, 1988.
• Parking Lots (illustrated by Laura Dronzek). Mount HOreb, WI: Perishable Press, 1992.
• Configurations: New and Selected Poems, 1958-1998. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 1998.

Novels

• All-Night Visitors. New York: Olympia, 1969.
• No. New York: Emerson Hall, 1973.
• Reflex and Bone Structure. New York; Fiction Collective, 1975.
• Emergency Exit. New York: Fiction Collective, 1979.
• My Amputations. New York: Fiction Collective, 1986.
• Such Was the Season. San Franciso, CA: Mercury House, 1987.
• Painted Turtle: Woman with Guitar. Los Angeles, CA: Sun & Moon, 1988.
• Dirty Bird Blues: A Novel. San Francisco, CA: Mercury House, 1996.

Short fiction

• Fun & Games. Duluth, MN: Holy Cow!, 1990.

Non-fiction

• The Dark and Feeling: Black American writers and their work. New York: Third Press, 1974.

Edited

• Writers Workshop Anthology. New York: Harlem Education Program, 1967.
• Man Is like a Child: An anthology of creative writing by students. Macomb Junior High School, 1968.
• The New Black Poetry. New York: International Publications, 1969.
• Dictionary of Afro-American Slang. New York: International Publications, 1970.
  • published in England as Black Slang: A Dictionary of Afro-American Talk. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1971
  • new edition (introduction by Major) Juba to Jive: A dictionary of African-American slang. New York: Viking, 1994.
• Jerry Bumpus, Things in Place (short stories). New York: Fiction Collective, 1975.
• Calling the Wind: Twentieth-century African-American short stories. New York: HarperCollins / Burlingame, 1993.
• The Garden Thrives: Twentieth-century African-American poetry. New York: HarperCollins, 1995.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.

Exhibitions

• Sarah Lawrence College Library Spring 1974
• First National Bank Gallery, Boulder Jan. 3-17 1986
• Kresge Art Museum East Lansing Michigan Sept 4-Oct 28 2001
• Schacknow Museum of Fine Art Plantation Florida April-May 2003
• Exploding Head Gallery Sacramento CA April 2003, August 2004, July 2006
• Hamilton Club Gallery Paterson New Jersey Nov 4-Feb 28 2007
• John Natsoulas Gallery May 9--31,1992, June 2002, July 1993
• Porter-Troupe Gallery San Diego CA April 2001
• Blue Hills Gallery Winters CA April-June 2005
• The Phoenix Gallery Sacramento March 2006,July 2006
• California Historical Society Museum San Francisco Dec 11 2004-April 16 2005
• Pierre Menard Gallery, Harvard Square, Cambridge MA, August 6-Sept. 3, 2010
• University Gallery Indiana State University Terre Haute February 2011

The Poetry Center — Clarence Major

Clarence Major - Kitchen Chair Poem No.5 (1972) (Spoken Word)

See also

• List of U.S. poets

References

• The Art and Life of Clarence Major by Keith E. Byerman ISBN 978-0-8203-3055-6, University of Georgia Press, 2012
• Clarence Major and His Art: Portraits of an African-American Postmodernist edited by Bernard W. Bell, 2001
• Conversations with Clarence Major edited by Nancy Bunge, University Press of Mississippi, 2002
• The Columbia Guide To Contemporary African American Fiction by Darryl Dickson-Carr (2005)
• The Blues Detective: A Study of African-American Detective Fiction by Stephen F. Soitos

External links

Poems

• Clarence Major b. 1936 at the Poetry Foundation
• Clarence Major at PoemHunter
• Clarence Major profile & 10 poems at AfroPoets

Audio / video

• Clarence Major at YouTube

Books

• Clarence Major at Amazon.com
• Works by or about Clarence Major in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

About

• Clarence Major profile at the Academy of American Poets
• Clarence Major Official website.
• Clarence Major Fine Art website

Etc.

• Clarence Major archives in the Givens Collection, Anderson Library, University of Minnesota.