Tom Clark (March 1, 1941 – August 18, 2018, aged 77) was an American poet, editor and biographer.

Education and personal life

Clark was born on the Near West Side of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, and attended Fenwick High School in Oak Park. After high school, he attended the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, where he received a

Hopwood Award The Hopwood Awards are a major scholarship program at the University of Michigan, founded by Avery Hopwood. Under the terms of the will of Avery Hopwood, a prominent American dramatist and member of the class of 1905 of the University of Michigan, ...

for poetry. He then won a

Fulbright Scholarship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

to undertake graduate study at

Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Gonville and Caius College, often referred to simply as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and one of th ...

in England (1963-5), before spending further time pursuing doctoral research (on the advice of

Donald Davie Donald Alfred Davie, FBA (17 July 1922 – 18 September 1995) was an English Movement poet, and literary critic. His poems in general are philosophical and abstract, but often evoke various landscapes. Biography Davie was born in Barnsley, ...

) at the newly-established

University of Essex The University of Essex is a public university, public research university in Essex, England. Established by royal charter in 1965, Essex is one of the original plate glass university, plate glass universities. Essex's shield consists of the an ...

.Tom Clark, 'Letters Home from Cambridge (1963-5)', ''Jacket Magazine'', issue 20, December 2002

Retrieved 6 January 2020. It was while in Britain that Clark famously hitchhiked through

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

in the company of

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

. On March 22, 1968, he married Angelica Heinegg, at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery, New York City. As of 2013, he was living in California.

Career

Clark was poetry editor of ''

The Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip ...

'' from 1963 to 1973, and published numerous volumes of poetry with

Black Sparrow Press Black Sparrow Press is a New England based independent book publisher, known for literary fiction and poetry. History Black Sparrow was founded in Los Angeles, California, in 1966 by John Martin in order to publish the works of Charles Bukowski ...

, including a verse biography: ''Junkets on a Sad Planet: Scenes from the Life of John Keats'' (1994). His literary essays and reviews appeared in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', ''

The Times Literary Supplement ''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp. History The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to ''The Times'' but became a separate publication i ...

'', ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'', ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...

'', ''

London Review of Books The ''London Review of Books'' (''LRB'') is a British literary magazine published twice monthly that features articles and essays on fiction and non-fiction subjects, which are usually structured as book reviews. History The ''London Review of ...

'', and many other journals. Some of his essays on contemporary poetry were collected in ''The Poetry Beat: Reviewing the Eighties''. From 1987 to 2008, he taught poetics at

New College of California New College of California was a college founded in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1971 by former Gonzaga University President John Leary. It ceased operations in early 2008. New College's main campus was housed in several buildings in the Mission ...

. Residing in California for the remainder of his life, Clark was an active writer, producing poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. In 1991, he published a biography of

Charles Olson Charles Olson (27 December 1910 – 10 January 1970) was a second generation modern American poet who was a link between earlier figures such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the New American poets, which includes the New York ...

, one of his poetic mentors, titled ''Charles Olson: The Allegory of a Poet’s Life'' (Norton: 1991).

Death

On the evening of Friday, August 17, 2018, Clark was walking across a street in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

, and was hit by a car at about 8:40 p.m. He died on the following day.

Bibliography

Poetry collections

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Literary biography

* * * * * * * * *

Fiction

* * * * * *

Essays on Poetry

* *

Other books by Clark

* * *

References

'' (Vol. 22 No. 13 · 6 Jul 2000) {{DEFAULTSORT:Clark, Tom 1941 births 2018 deaths American magazine editors American male poets Baseball writers American male biographers New College of California faculty Poets from Illinois Road incident deaths in California The Paris Review 20th-century American poets 20th-century American biographers 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American poets 21st-century American male writers University of Michigan alumni Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Writers from Chicago 21st-century American non-fiction writers Sportswriters from Illinois Historians from Illinois

Education and personal life

Career

Death

Bibliography

Poetry collections

Literary biography

Fiction

Essays on Poetry

Other books by Clark

References

External links