Clark Coolidge (born February 26, 1939) is an American poet.

Background

As a teenager, Coolidge attended

Classical High School Classical High School, founded in 1843, is a public magnet school in the Providence School District, in Providence, Rhode Island. It was originally an all-male school but has since become co-ed. Classical's motto is ''Certare, Petere, Reperire, ...

in Providence, Rhode Island. Coolidge attended

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

, where his father taught in the music department. After moving to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

in the early 1960s, Coolidge cultivated links with

Ted Berrigan Ted Berrigan (November 15, 1934 – July 4, 1983) was an American poet. Early life Berrigan was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on November 15, 1934. After high school, he spent a year at Providence College before joining the U.S. Army. After ...

and

Bernadette Mayer Bernadette Mayer (May 12, 1945 – November 22, 2022) was an American poet, writer, and visual artist associated with both the Language poets and the New York School. Early life and education Bernadette Mayer was born in a predominantly Ge ...

. In 1967, Coolidge moved to San Francisco and joined David Meltzer's band, The Serpent Power, as a drummer. Often associated with the

Language School A language school is a school where one studies a foreign language. Classes at a language school are usually geared towards, for example, communicative competence in a foreign language. Language learning in such schools typically supplements fo ...

his experience as a

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

drummer and interest in a wide array of subjects including caves, geology,

bebop Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early-to-mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo, complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerous changes of key, instrumen ...

, weather,

Salvador Dalí Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (; ; ; 11 May 190423 January 1989) was a Spanish Surrealism, surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarr ...

Jack Kerouac Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Of French-Canadian a ...

and movies, Coolidge often finds correspondence in his work. Coolidge grew up in Providence, Rhode Island and has lived, among other places, in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

Cambridge (MA) Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

(Italy), and the

Berkshire Hills The Berkshires () are a highland geologic region located in the western parts of Massachusetts and northwest Connecticut. The term "Berkshires" is normally used by locals in reference to the portion of the Vermont-based Green Mountains that ex ...

. He currently lives in

Petaluma, California Petaluma (Miwok languages, Miwok: ''Péta Lúuma'') is a city in Sonoma County, California, Sonoma County, California, located in the North Bay (San Francisco Bay Area), North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Its population was 59,776 a ...

Publications

*''Flag Flutter & U.S. Electric'', (New York: Lines Books, 1966). *''ING'', (New York: Angel Hair, 1968). *(with

Tom Veitch Tom Veitch (September 26, 1941 – February 14, 2022) was an American writer, known for his work in the comic book industry. He was also a novelist and a poet. He was the brother of comics writer and artist Rick Veitch. Early life Veitch was ...

) ''To Obtain the Value of the Cake Measure From Zero: A Play in One Act'', (San Francisco: Pants Press, 1970). *''Space'', (New York: Harper & Row, 1970). *''The So: Poems 1966'', (New York: Adventures in Poetry, 1971). *''Suite V'', (New York: Adventures in Poetry, 1973). *''The Maintains'', (San Francisco, CA:

This Press ''This'' is a poetry journal associated with what would later be called Language poetry because during the time span in which ''This'' was published, "many poets of the emerging Language school were represented in its pages". The first three issu ...

, 1974). *''Polaroid'', (New York: Adventures in Poetry / Bolinas, CA: Big Sky, 1975). *''Quartz Hearts'', (San Francisco: This Press, 1978). *''Own Face'', (Lenox, MA: Angel Hair Books, 1978. Reprinted Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1993). *''Smithsonian Depositions & Subject to a Film'', (New York: Vehicle Editions, 1980). *''A Geology'', (Needham, MA: Potes & Poets Press, 1981. Reprinted in 1988 and 1999). *''American Ones'', (Bolinas, CA: Tombouctou, 1981). *''Research'', (Berkeley, CA: Tuumba Press, 1982). *''Mine: The One That Enters the Stories'', (Berkeley, CA: The Figures, 1982). *''Solution Passage: Poems 1978-1981'', (Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1986). *''The Crystal Text'', (Great Barrington, MA: The Figures, 1986. Reprinted Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1995). *''Melencholia'', (Great Barrington, MA: The Figures, 1987). *''At Egypt'', (Great Barrington, MA: The Figures, 1988). *''Sound as Thought: Poems 1982-1984'', (Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1990). *(with

Ron Padgett Ron Padgett (born June 17, 1942, Tulsa, Oklahoma) is an American poet, essayist, fiction writer, translator, and a member of the New York School. ''Great Balls of Fire'', Padgett's first full-length collection of poems, was published in 1969. He ...

) ''Supernatural Overtones'', (Great Barrington, MA: The Figures, 1990). *''Odes of Roba'', (Great Barrington, MA: The Figures, 1991). *''The Book of During'', (Great Barrington, MA: The Figures, 1991). *(with

Philip Guston Philip Guston (born Phillip Goldstein, June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980), was a Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. Early in his five decade career, muralist David Siquieros described him as one of "the most promising ...

) ''Baffling Means: Writings/Drawings'', (Stockbridge, MA: O-blek Editions, 1991). *(with

Michael Gizzi Michael Gizzi (1949 – September 27, 2010) was an American poet, teacher, and licensed arborist. Life Michael Gizzi was born in Schenectady, New York in 1949, to Carolyn and Anthony Gizzi. He had two brothers, Peter and Thomas Gizzi. He spen ...

and

John Yau John Yau (born June 5, 1950) is an American poet and critic who lives in New York City. He received his B.A. from Bard College in 1972 and his M.F.A. from Brooklyn College in 1978. He has published over 50 books of poetry, artists' books, fiction ...

) ''Lowell Connector: Lines & Shots from Kerouac's Town'', (West Stockbridge, MA: Hard Press, 1993). *(with

Larry Fagin Larry Fagin (July 21, 1937 – May 27, 2017) was an American poet, editor, publisher, and teacher, and a member of the New York School. Biography Born in Far Rockaway, New York City, Larry Fagin grew up in New York, Hollywood, and Europe. He bega ...

) ''On the Pumice of Morons'', (Great Barrington, MA: The Figures, 1993). *''The ROVA Improvisations'', (Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1994). *''Registers (People in All)'', (Avenue B, 1994). *''For

Kurt Cobain Kurt Donald Cobain (February 20, 1967 – April 5, 1994) was an American musician who served as the lead vocalist, guitarist and primary songwriter of the rock band Nirvana. Through his angst-fueled songwriting and anti-establishment persona ...

'', (Great Barrington, MA: The Figures, 1995). *''The Names'', (Brightlingsea, Essex: Active in Airtime, 1997). *''Now It's Jazz: Writings on Kerouac & The Sounds'', (Albuquerque, NM: Living Batch, 1999). *(with

Keith Waldrop Keith Waldrop (born December 11, 1932, in Emporia, Kansas) is an American poet, translator, and academic. He has authored numerous books of poetry and prose and translated the work of Claude Royet-Journoud, Anne-Marie Albiach, and Edmond Jabès ...

) ''Bomb'', (New York: Granary Books, 2000). *''Alien Tatters'', (Berkeley, CA: Atelos, 2000). *''On The Nameways, Volume 1'', (Great Barrington, MA: The Figures, 2000). *''On The Nameways, Volume 2'', (Great Barrington, MA: The Figures, 2001). *''Far Out West'', (New York: Adventures in Poetry, 2001). *''On the Slates'', (Oakland, CA: Tougher Disguises, 2002). *''Counting on Planet Zero'', (Wendell, MA : Fewer & Further Press, 2007). *''The Act of Providence'', (Qua Press, 2010). * ''This Time We Are Both'', (Ugly Duckling Press, 2010). * ''Book Beginning What and Ending Away'', (Fence Books, 2013). * ''88 Sonnets'', (Fence Books, 2013). * ''Selected Poems: 1962-1985,'' (Station Hill Press, 2017) edited by Clark Coolidge and

, with an introduction by

Bill Berkson William Craig Berkson (August 30, 1939 – June 16, 2016) was an American poet, critic, and teacher who was active in the art and literary worlds from his early twenties on. Early life and education Born in New York City on August 30, 1939, Bil ...

As editor

*''Heart of the Breath: Poems 1979-1992'' by Jim Brody. Hard Press Editions, 1996 *''Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversations''. Berkeley, CA:

University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...

, 2010

References

External links

Clark Coolidge Homepage
@ the Electronic Poetry Center
''From Notebooks (1976-1982)''
from ''Code of Signals'', edited by Michael Palmer (

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

file at Duration Press, pages 43–56)
''A Symposium on Clark Coolidge,''
edited by

Ron Silliman Ron Silliman (born August 5, 1946) is an American poet. He has written and edited over 30 books, and has had his poetry and criticism translated into 12 languages. He is often associated with language poetry. Between 1979 and 2004, Silliman wr ...

, published as No. 5 of ''Stations'' magazine, Winter, 1978 (

file at Eclipse Archiv

Clark Coolidge Feature
@ ''

Jacket Magazine ''Jacket'' (now published as ''Jacket2'') is an online literary periodical, which was founded by the Australian poet John Tranter. The first issue was in October 1997. Until 2010, each new number of the magazine was posted at the Web site pi ...

'' features poems, essays, interviews
Clark Coolidge on Jack Kerouac"Add-Verse" a poetry-photo-video project Coolidge participated in
In this piece,

notes that Coolidge has produced "the finest critical writing I’ve ever read on Kerouac’s work".
Review of Clark Coolidge's This Time We Are Both
{{DEFAULTSORT:Coolidge, Clark 1939 births American male poets Classical High School alumni Language poets People from Petaluma, California Living people Writers from Providence, Rhode Island