Tom Clark (poet)

This article is about the 20th-century American poet. For the 20th-century Scottish poet, see Thomas A. Clark.

Tom Clark. Courtesy Jacket.

Tom Clark (born March 1, 1941) is an American poet, editor, and biographer.

Life

Clark was born on the Near West Side of Chicago. He was educated at the University of Michigan, where he received a Hopwood Award for poetry. On March 22, 1968, he married Angelica Heinegg, at St. Mark’s Church, New York City.

Career

Clark served as poetry editor of The Paris Review from 1963 to 1973, and published numerous volumes of poetry with Black Sparrow Press, including a verse biography: Junkets on a Sad Planet: Scenes from the life of John Keats (1994). His literary essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, Times Literary Supplement, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, London Review of Books, and many other journals; some of his essays on contemporary poetry have been collected in The Poetry Beat: Reviewing the Eighties. From 1987 to 2008 he taught Poetics at New College of California.Template:Failed verification

Residing in California, Clark remains an active writer producing poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. In 1991, he published a biography of Charles Olson, one of his poetic mentors, entitled Charles Olson: The allegory of a poet’s life (Norton: 1991).

Publications

Poetry

• Airplanes. Brightlingsea, Essex, UK: Once Press, 1966.
• The Sand Burg: Poems. London, UK: Ferry Press, 1966.
• Bun (with Ron Padgett). New York: Angel Hair Books, 1968.
• (With Lewis Warsh) Chicago, IL. Angel Hair Books, 1969.
• Stones. New York: Harper, 1969.
• Air. New York: Harper, 1970.
• Green. Los Angeles, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1971.
• The No Book. Wivenhoe Park, Essex, UK: Ant's Forefoot, 1971.
• John's Heart. New York: Grossman, 1972; London, UK: Cape Goliard Press, 1972.
• Back in Boston Again (with Ron Padgett and Ted Berrigan). Philadephia, PA: Telegraph Books, 1972.
• Smack. Black Sparrow Press, 1972.
• Suite. Black Sparrow Press, 1974.
• Blue. Black Sparrow Press, 1974.
• At Malibu. New York: Kulchur, 1975.
• Baseball. Berkeley, CA: Figures, 1976.
• Fan Poems. Plainfield, VT: North Atlantic, 1976.
• An Arthur Felgenheim Sachet. privately printed, 1976.
• 35. Berkeley, CA: Poltroon Press, 1978.
• How I Broke In/Six Modern Masters. Bolinas, CA: Tombouctou Books, 1978.
• When Things Get Tough on Easy Street: Selected Poems, 1963-1978. Santa Barbara, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1978.
• The Mutabilitie of the English Lyrick (parodies). Poltroon Press, 1979.
• The End of the Line. Little Caesar Press, 1980.
• Nine Songs. Isla Vista, CA: Turkey Press, 1981.
• A Short Guide to the High Plains, Santa Barbara, CA: Cadmus, 1981.
• Heartbreak Hotel. West Branch, IA: Toothpaste Press, 1981.
• Journey to the Ulterior. Santa Barbara, CA: Am Here/Immediate, 1981.
• The Rodent Who Came to Dinner. Santa Barbara, CA: Am Here/Immediate, 1981.
• Under the Fortune Palms. Turkey Press, 1982.
• Dark as Day. Bolinas, CA: Smithereens Press, 1983.
• After Dante. Santa Barbara, CA: Handmade, 1984.
• How It Goes. Handmade, 1984.
• Technology. Handmade, 1984.
• Paradise Resisted: Selected Poems, 1978-1984. Black Sparrow Press, 1984.
• Property. Los Angeles, CA: Illuminati Books, 1984.
• The Border. Minneapolis, MN: Coffee House Press, 1984.
• Easter Sunday. Minneapolis, MN: Coffee House Press, 1987.
• Disordered Ideas. Black Sparrow Press, 1987.
• Fractured Karma. Black Sparrow Press, 1990.
• Sleepwalker's Fate: New and Selected Poems, 1965-1991. Black Sparrow Press, 1992.
• Junkets on a Sad Planet: Scenes From the life of John Keats (verse novel). Santa Rosa, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1994.

• Like Real People. Black Sparrow Press, 1995.
• Empire of Skin. Black Sparrow Press, 1997.
• White Thought. Hard Press/The Figures, 1997.

Play

• The Emperor of the Animals (three act play; first produced in London, 1966). London, UK: Goliard Press, 1967.

Fiction

• A Conversation with Hitler (stories). Black Sparrow Press, 1978.
• Who Is Sylvia? (novel). Eugene, OR: Blue Wind Press, 1979.
• The Last Gas Station and Other Stories. Black Sparrow Press, 1980.
• The Master (novel). Harcourt, 1984.
• The Exile of Celine (novelized biography). New York, NY: Random House, 1986.

Biography

• Neil Young. Toronto, ON: Coach House Press, 1971.
• No Big Deal (with Mark Fidrych). Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott, 1977.
• The World of Damon Runyon. Harper, 1978.
• Jack Kerouac: A Biography. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1984.
  • Jack Kerouac: A Biography (introduction by Carolyn Cassady)., New York, NY: Marlowe & Co., 1998.
• Late Returns: A Personal Memoir of Ted Berrigan. Tombouctou, 1985.
• Charles Olson: The Allegory of a Poet's Life. New York, NY: Norton, 1991.
• Robert Creeley and the Genius of the American Common Place: Together with the Poet's Own Autobiography. New York, NY: New Directions, 1993.
• The Spell: A Romance. Santa Rosa, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 2000.
• Things Happen for a Reason: The True Story of an Itinerant Life in Baseball (coauthor with Terry Leach). Berkeley, CA: Frog, Ltd., 2000.

Other non-fiction

• Champagne and Baloney: The rise and fall of Finley's A's. Harper, 1976.
• One Last Round for the Shuffler: A blacklisted ballplayer's Story. St. Paul, MN: Truck Books, 1979.
• The Great Naropa Poetry Wars. Cadmus, 1980.
• Kerouac's Last Word: Jack Kerouac in Escapade. Sudbury, MA: Water Row Press, 1987.
• The Poetry Beat: Reviewing the eighties. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1990.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.

See also

The Poetry Center — Tom Clark at the Green Arcade

• List of U.S. poets

External links

Poems

• Two poems
• Tom Clark b. 1941 at the Poetry Foundation

Books

• Tom Clark at Amazon.com
• Works by or about Tom Clark (poet) in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• The World Begins: A visit with Tom Clark

About

• Tom Clark at Jacket Magazine
• Tom Clark, 1941-. American author Washington University Libraries bio
• Tom Clark's Blog