Surfaces and Masks
by Clarence Major
from Coffee House Press
long narrative poem, a black American in Venice
Necessary Distance
by Clarence Major
from Coffee House Press
Bringing together critical essays, articles, and reviews by 1999 National Book Award for Poetry finalist, this landmark collection is an impressive look back-and forward-by one of our most visionary authors. From essays on the craft of writing, to critiques of contemporary and classic African-American authors and their work, to observations on the quirkiness of the writing and publishing life, Necessary Distance is a compendium of the best nonfiction prose by an important figure in contemporary American letters.
This collection is a portrait of the artist's rise to prominence in American letters. "A writer is usually a person who has to learn how to keep his ego-like his virginity-and lose it at the same time. In other words, he becomes a kind of twin of himself. He remains that self-centered infant while transcending him to become the observer of his experience and, by extension, the observer of a wide range of experience within his cultural domain." From his apt observations on cultural doubleness, to his redefinition of a political poetry that is "organic in its ideas, . . . that in no way compromised its own artistic nature," to his consumate statement on the concept of rhythm in African -American poetry, Necessary Distance is a sweeping tour of new ground in literature and poetics.
Clarence Major is the author of nine novels, nine books of poetry, and many nonfiction works and was a 1999 finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry for Configurations. Major teaches at the University of California in Davis. He has written for the New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Essence, and dozens of other periodicals.
Calling the Wind: Twentieth-Century African-American Short Stories
Pivotal stories from post-slavery days through the Harlem Renaissance and into the nineties.
Come By Here: My Mother's Life
by Clarence Major
from Wiley
Lavish praise for come by here
"With elegant simplicity and uncommon wisdom, Clarence Major gives us not just the truth of his mother's life but the unspoken truth behind the lie of color in the American story. A compelling narrative."
-- Rilla Askew, author, Fire in Beulah
"A brilliant rendering of a rich and eventful life. With creative insight, love, and admiration, Major shows us how in family life down through the generations, race really matters."
-- Andrew Billingsley, author, Climbing Jacob's Ladder:
The Enduring Legacy of African American Families
Critical acclaim for Clarence Major
"Clarence Major has a remarkable mind and the talent to match."
-- Toni Morrison, Nobel Laureate
"One of America's most gifted and versatile writers."
-- Library Journal
Emergency Exit
experimental novel
Fun & Games: Short Fictions
by Clarence Major
from Holy Cow! Press
novelist/poet's first collection of short stories
The New Black Poetry
Painted Turtle: Woman With Guitar (New American Fiction Series)
first paperback edition of Major's Zuni novel
Configurations: New & Selected Poems, 1958-1998
by Clarence Major
from Copper Canyon Press
"Death ... is not all / she's cracked up to be," Clarence Major announces in "Love Against Death"--and indeed, the rest of Configurations makes a valiant effort to knock the old girl down a peg or two. Death may be a constant companion in this volume, but she's never allowed to take control; for this poet, you must accept mortality--not let it haunt you--to be truly alive. Major's first collection, Swallow the Lake, won the National Council for the Arts Award in 1970. He has gone on to produce eight well-received volumes, all of which are represented--along with many uncollected works--in this striking overview of his career thus far. While these poems are born out of the William Carlos Williams school of plain speech, they are equally inflected by bebop's syncopated rhythms and improvisational style. One notices both in "Un Poco Loco," in which the speaker's "disconnected thoughts" riff against the steady rhythm of the grandmother preparing dinner, Ã la Williams: "To keep going, I think / disconnected thoughts: / Chatter. Chew-tobacco. / Phoenicians. Rednecks. / To keep going I watch / my grandmother hold / the chicken by its legs-- / bauk bauk bauk!"
Throughout these poems, Major is adamant about the need to hold onto hope even while we confront our mortality. His poems approach this in numerous ways--through bursts of metaphoric images, through patterns of music and formal rhythmic structure, and through narrative interaction with others on the same inescapable journey. In the book's strongest pieces, such as "Love Against Death," all of these devices work together with moving results:
With our love, dear, we fight death,In Configurations, Major fights both death and unclear meanings in language of uncompromising clarity and precision. For now, he seems to suggest, this is what it means to be alive. --A.J. Rathbun
and we fight unclear meanings.
They are like air released
in a broken scream--
at three in the morning
when your legs feel wooden.
Embrace night odors.
Embrace each other.
Rub your hands
against the roughness
of the whitewashed wall.
For now, you are alive.
Finalist for the National Book Award
Drawing his most outstanding work from nine previous volumes of award-winning poetry, Clarence Major had added a substantial body of new work to present a clear assessment of his forty-year career. By turns humorous and serious, Major is always richly lyrical while remaining precise in his observations. Line by line, his poems insist upon their own integrity, driven on by music as equally inspired by blues and jazz as it is by the Cantos of Ezra Pound.
Born in Atlanta and raised in Chicago, Clarence Major is the author of eight previous volumes of poetry, eight novels, including Dirty Bird Blues (originally published in HC by Mercury House), several collections of short stories and nonfiction, and editor of two acclaimed anthologies of African-American literature. He teaches at the University of California, Davis.
"Like the finest blues, Clarence Major is, by turns, hypnotic, exotic, and healthily erotic."-Al Young
"[Clarence Major] writes poetry with the resistant, angular surface of tumbled brick. As if the poem had been literally smashed. An improvisational, jazz-like quality. Some tough, sharp observations."-Kirkus Reviews
"Passionate [and] controlled lyricism. . . The prevailing tonality of the poetry is quiet, almost philosophical."-Library Journal
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