Configurations: New & Selected Poems, 1958-1998
by Clarence Major
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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 theCantos of Ezra Pound. show more Born in Atlanta and raised in Chicago,Clarence Major is the author of eight previous volumes of poetry, eight novels, includingDirty 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 show lessTags
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Artist and writer Clarence Major grew up in Chicago and later received his Ph.D. from the Union Institute in Ohio. He has been a judge for the National Book Awards and was twice named to the panel of the National Endowment of the Arts. Major has written eight novels including "Such Was The Season" and "Painted Turtle," which received citations show more from the New York Times Book Review as Summer Reading and Notable Book of the Year, and "My Amputations," which received the Western States Book Award. Major published "Juba Jive: A Dictionary of African American Slang," as well as nine other books of poetry that won a National Council of the Arts Award and two Pushcart Prizes. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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