Clifton Snider
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Clifton Mark Snider (born March 3, 1947, and died October 24, 2021) was an American poet, novelist, literary critic, scholar, and educator.


Early life

Clifton Snider was born in
Duluth, Minnesota Duluth ( ) is a Port, port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of St. Louis County, Minnesota, St. Louis County. Located on Lake Superior in Minnesota's Arrowhead Region, the city is a hub for cargo shipping. The population ...
, the second of five sons. His father, Allan G. Snider, was a minister with the
Assemblies of God The World Assemblies of God Fellowship (WAGF), commonly known as the Assemblies of God (AG), is a global cooperative body or communion of over 170 Pentecostal denominations that was established on August 15, 1989. The WAGF was created to provi ...
denomination. His mother, Rhoda M. Tout, had traveled as an evangelist with Olga Olsson before her marriage to Allan Snider. Because the father was a minister, the family moved frequently. By the age of twelve, Snider had lived in Minnesota; Joliet, Illinois; Terre Haute, Indiana; and several cities in southern California. He had a B.A. and an M.A. from
California State University, Long Beach California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), also known in athletics as Long Beach State University (LBSU), is a public teaching-focused institution in Long Beach, California, United States. The 322-acre campus is the second largest in the ...
, and a Ph.D. from the
University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; ) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States. Founded in 1889 by the New Mexico Territorial Legislature, it is the state's second oldest university, a flagship university in th ...
. He taught at various institutions of higher education in southern California, primarily at
Long Beach City College Long Beach City College (LBCC) is a public community college in Long Beach, California, United States. It was established in 1927 and is divided into two campuses, the Liberal Arts Campus (LAC) in Lakewood Village and the Trades, Technology, an ...
and at California State University, Long Beach.


Critic and scholar

He went to Southern California College (an Assemblies of God institution now called
Vanguard University Vanguard University (officially Vanguard University of Southern California) is a private Protestant university in Costa Mesa, California. It was the first four-year college in Orange County. Vanguard's required core curriculum includes courses o ...
) on music and academic scholarships. After two years, he transferred to
California State University, Long Beach California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), also known in athletics as Long Beach State University (LBSU), is a public teaching-focused institution in Long Beach, California, United States. The 322-acre campus is the second largest in the ...
, where he finished his B.A., graduating with honors in 1969, and his M.A. (1971). He received his Ph.D. in English Literature in 1974 from the
University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; ) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States. Founded in 1889 by the New Mexico Territorial Legislature, it is the state's second oldest university, a flagship university in th ...
. Snider's doctoral dissertation is a Jungian analysis of
Swinburne Algernon Charles Swinburne (5 April 1837 – 10 April 1909) was an English poet, playwright, novelist and critic. He wrote many plays – all tragedies – and collections of poetry such as '' Poems and Ballads'', and contributed to the Eleve ...
's ''Tristram of Lyonesse'', and he has published numerous articles on Victorian literature, as well as twentieth century English and American literatures. These include introductions to Jungian psychology (or
Analytical Psychology Analytical psychology (, sometimes translated as analytic psychology; also Jungian analysis) is a term referring to the psychological practices of Carl Jung. It was designed to distinguish it from Freud's psychoanalytic theories as their ...
) and criticism, histories of
Merlin The Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network (MERLIN) is an interferometer array of radio telescopes spread across England. The array is run from Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire by the University of Manchester on behalf of UK Re ...
in 19th-century British literature, as well as such authors as
W. H. Auden Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry is noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, ...
,
Emily Dickinson Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massac ...
,
Edward Lear Edward Lear (12 May 1812 – 29 January 1888) was an English artist, illustrator, musician, author and poet, who is known mostly for his literary nonsense in poetry and prose and especially his limerick (poetry), limericks, a form he popularised. ...
,
Carson McCullers Carson McCullers (February 19, 1917 – September 29, 1967) was an American novelist, short-story writer, playwright, essayist, and poet. Her first novel, ''The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter'' (1940), explores the spiritual isolation of misfits ...
,
Algernon Charles Swinburne Algernon Charles Swinburne (5 April 1837 – 10 April 1909) was an English poet, playwright, novelist and critic. He wrote many plays – all tragedies – and collections of poetry such as '' Poems and Ballads'', and contributed to the Eleve ...
,
Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish author, poet, and playwright. After writing in different literary styles throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular and influential playwright ...
, and
Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th-century modernist authors. She helped to pioneer the use of stream of consciousness narration as a literary device. Vir ...
. A specialist in Wilde, he has taught his own seminars on him at California State University, Long Beach, and published several articles on Wilde using his primary critical approaches of Jungian and Queer Criticism. He also taught the first course ever on Gays and Lesbians in Literature at Cal State Long Beach. His book, ''The Stuff That Dreams Are Made On: A Jungian Interpretation of Literature'', contains a chapter on Wilde. His latest article uses Jungian and Queer Criticism to examine ''
Brokeback Mountain ''Brokeback Mountain'' is a 2005 American neo-Western romantic drama film directed by Ang Lee and produced by Diana Ossana and James Schamus. Adapted from Brokeback Mountain (short story), the 1997 short story by Annie Proulx, the screenplay ...
'', story and film, and appears in the Jungian journal, ''Psychological Perspectives'', January, 2008. Snider's shorter pieces of criticism have appeared in many periodicals, among them ''
The Advocate An advocate is a professional in the field of law. The Advocate, The Advocates or Advocate may also refer to: Magazines * The Advocate (magazine), ''The Advocate'' (magazine), an LGBT magazine based in the United States * ''The Harvard Advocate' ...
'', the ''
Long Beach Press-Telegram The ''Press-Telegram'' is a paid daily newspaper published in Long Beach, California. Coverage area for the ''Press-Telegram'' includes Long Beach, Lakewood, Signal Hill, Artesia, Bellflower, Cerritos, Compton, Downey, Hawaiian Gardens, L ...
'', and the ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
''. In the early 1980s he was a contributing editor for the ''Maelstrom Review''.


Activism

A political/peace activist, Snider has posted poems on the national web site, Poets Against the War, and maintains his own web page, A Poet Against the War, on which he has posted some of his own poetry. The page includes many news items, photos, and links regarding the war in Iraq, not the least of which are statistics of the dead and wounded and information about the slaughter in Iraq of academics and gay people. He has served as an officer in the Long Beach Lambda Democratic Club. In the midst of the presidential election during the fall semester of 2004 at Cal State Long Beach, Snider became involved in a national controversy over
academic freedom Academic freedom is the right of a teacher to instruct and the right of a student to learn in an academic setting unhampered by outside interference. It may also include the right of academics to engage in social and political criticism. Academic ...
when two of his students, a young woman and a young man, went on
Fox News The Fox News Channel (FNC), commonly known as Fox News, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conservatism in the United States, conservative List of news television channels, news and political commentary Television stati ...
to complain about Snider's comments the first night of a freshman composition class. Because his emphasis in a class that is supposed to promote critical thinking about controversial issues was on morality and spirituality, Snider used the war in Iraq as an example of immorality. He invited any student who disagreed to say so, and these two did. A number of others in the class agreed with Snider. Fox News, however, and a number of other right-wing commentators, responding to a complaint by the female student on
David Horowitz David Joel Horowitz (January 10, 1939 – April 29, 2025) was an American conservative writer and activist. He was a founder and president of the David Horowitz Freedom Center (DHFC); editor of the Center's website '' FrontPage Magazine''; and ...
's site, Students for Academic Freedom, concentrated on Snider's argument paper topics and his book list for a book review, both of which were perceived as biased (the student said the list had "a dominant theme: Sexual icperversion and anti Bush icrhetoric"). The homophobic drumbeat was picked up by other sites, such as Agape Press. The hate mail and death threats were such that for a time Snider received police protection while teaching that class ("Attack of the Killer Hipublicans," ''Whole Life Times''). The student became a spokesperson for Horowitz, writing numerous articles for right-wing blogs and other web sites and appearing again on national television on
Paul Gigot Paul Anthony Gigot (; born May 24, 1955) is an American Pulitzer Prize–winning conservative political commentator and editor of the editorial pages for ''The Wall Street Journal''. He is also the moderator of the public affairs television se ...
's ''The Journal Editorial Report'' on September 23, 2005, which at that time was on PBS. Not allowed to respond to his former student's accusations on the Gigot program or on its web site, Snider, who had felt constrained by his employer to keep silent, finally told his side of the story on Insidehighered.com. His former student was claiming Snider had been unfair to her by giving her a "B" on a paragraph she wrote on the film ''
Fahrenheit 9/11 ''Fahrenheit 9/11'' is a 2004 American documentary film directed, written by, and starring Michael Moore. The subjects of the film are the presidency of George W. Bush, the Iraq War, and the media's coverage of the war. In the film, Moore state ...
'' when she had been achieving a "straight-A record" in the class. Snider wrote he had "the grade book" for the class which proved she was not telling the truth. Neither she nor Horowitz ever contested what Snider said, and indeed neither she nor the male student ever followed university policy regarding complaints against professors.


Career as a poet and critical reception

All of Snider's books of poetry, fiction, and literary criticism have been critically acclaimed. Cadence Collective has called him "one of the most magnificent and prolific poets of our time." His first chapbook, ''Jesse Comes Back'' (1976), was followed by the elegiac ''Bad Smoke Good Body'' (1980), written for the poet's older brother, Evan, who had disappeared under circumstances indicating foul play in October 1976. The loss of his older brother, who was gay, as is Snider, has run through Snider's work through the years, culminating in the frankly autobiographical novel, ''Wrestling with Angels: A Tale of Two Brothers'' (2001). Indeed, Snider uses each of the twelve poems from ''Bad Smoke'' as epigraphs for each of the twelve chapters of the novel. Snider's criticism and poetry have been translated into Russian, French, Spanish, and Arabic, and his poetry, fiction, and criticism have been published around the world in countries as diverse as Algeria, Canada, England, France, Ireland, and the United States. Much of his work concerns the foreign places he's visited, and though his home is Long Beach, California, the spiritual core of his poetry is often centered in New Mexico, with its rich mixture of Native, Hispanic, and Anglo cultures. In New Mexico he has held a number of residence grants at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, Taos. (Other residence grants he has held have been at Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, New York, and the Karolyi Foundation, Vence, France.) In addition to drawing on his own Christian roots for his work, Snider also draws on a multitude of other religious/spiritual traditions, from Native American to East Indian, African, and Nordic peoples, myths, and legends. Of particular interest are his poems about the
Paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( years ago) ( ), also called the Old Stone Age (), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehist ...
European caves of Niaux and Pech-Merle. Robert Peters examines Snider's work in a chapter titled "Poems for an Autobiography" in ''The Great American Poetry Bake-off'' (1987). In 1986 at The Works Gallery, Long Beach, California, Out Theater produced as its premier production ''Edwin: A Performance Art Event'', based on Snider's book, ''Edwin: A Character in Poems'' (1984), and his one-act play, ''A Little Get-Together''. Although, with the exception of ''Bad Smoke Good Body'', Snider's early books focused on characters he invented, fellow Long Beach poet and critic Gerald Locklin maintains in ''Western American Literature'' that Snider's fifth book of poems, ''Blood & Bones'' (1988), "completes, with the dropping of the 'Jesse' and 'Edwin' personae, nider'stransition from modern to postmodern artist. The confidence he now exhibits renders accessible to artistic use a rich though often painful personal history." Of the same book, Richard Labonte writes in the national gay and lesbian magazine,
The Advocate An advocate is a professional in the field of law. The Advocate, The Advocates or Advocate may also refer to: Magazines * The Advocate (magazine), ''The Advocate'' (magazine), an LGBT magazine based in the United States * ''The Harvard Advocate' ...
: "Southern California poet Clifton Snider explores the unexpected, the near tragic, and the adventurous. In three sections, he writes of a trip through Europe in the '70s, of his sudden hospitalization with a bleeding ulcer, and of his return to travel in Europe in the mid '80s. Poems of the first trip are soaked with the blood oozing into his guts; poems of the second trip reflect good health, a good eye, and maturity. The contrast is appealing; the poems, beguiling." ''Impervious to Piranhas'' (1989), the chapbook that followed ''Blood & Bones'', collects poems, early and late, which Snider had not found places for in his earlier collections. ''The Age of the Mother'' (1992), the full-length book that Snider published next, was praised by Glenn Bach ("In these beautifully spare words, Snider weaves personal mantras of birth, death, and transcendence. He announces the return of the Goddess after centuries of patriarchal dominance," ''Small Press Review'') and Marilyn Johnson ("Out of ... profound insight and spiritual wisdom he ... has created an offering, a magnificent poetic vision, a prayer-book for the coming New Age," ''Pearl''). His collection of poems, ''The Alchemy of Opposites'' (2000), has received the greatest praise of Snider's fairly lengthy career. Eva von Kesselhausen, for example, writes in the ''Small Press Review'': "Clifton Snider has been writing and publishing for over 25 years to establish himself as one of American's best . . . contemporary poets. ''The Alchemy of Opposites'' . . . stands as his most outstanding book to date . . .
ith The Ith () is a ridge in Germany's Central Uplands which is up to 439 m high. It lies about 40 km southwest of Hanover and, at 22 kilometers, is the longest line of crags in North Germany. Geography Location The Ith is i ...
poignant poetry which is highly crafted and easy to read." And in the ''International Gay and Lesbian Review'', Arnold T. Schwab declares, "''The Alchemy of Opposites'' is Clifton Snider's . . . best work in verse, his most personal and moving"; Schwab also admires "Snider's emotional directness and the admirable accessibility of his imagery. . . . ''The Alchemy of Opposites'' indeed contains outcroppings of pure gold." Two poems from this collection, "Le Mont Saint- Michel" and "Honey from Heaven," won "In the Spotlight" awards from the online magazine, The Poetry Page, in 1999. Snider published his collection of poems, ''Aspens in the Wind,'' in 2009. His much-anticipated career retrospective, covering his 40 years of publishing history, ''Moonman: New and Selected Poems'', came out from World Parade Books in the spring of 2012. In the national online journal, ''Lambda Literary'', Tony Leuzzi writes, "''Moonman ''traces Snider's fluid movement from one idiom to another: restrained poems in traditional forms; intellectual utterances that demonstrate his awareness of Western and Eastern philosophical systems; chatty, casual poems that respond to aspects of popular culture; and, most impressively, concise and memorable imagist verse. . . . n ''Edwin: A Character in Poems''the persona functions as an effective objective correlative whose dual obsessions with thought and body echo a whole generation of gay men. . . . ther poemsare lit with a delirious, visionary glow''." Snider's collection of poems, ''The Beatle Bump,'' is a creative, often irreverent take on the greatest rock band of all time, with a variety of poetic forms and styles, including ekphrastic poems on the infamous "Butcher Sleeve" and John Lennon's erotic lithographs. There are song lyrics, a sonnet, and nonsense verse inspired by Lennon's own books. Snider draws on his background in Jungian and Queer criticism to create a unique and refreshing book of poetry and prose (there are two fan letters) about the Beatles. On July 7, 2018, Snider was awarded the inaugural Lorde-Whitman Award for "outstanding achievement in the arts and service to the LGBTQ community" from OUT LOUD: A Cultural Evolution, Long Beach, California. On October 24, 2021, Snider suffered a fatal heart attack as he was hiking with a group, in Athens, Greece. He is commemorated by his brother, Merlin Snider, on social media, who stated that “…our circle in this plane is complete with love and without regret.”


Novels

In 2000-2001 Snider published in rapid succession three novels he had written in the 1980s: ''Loud Whisper'', ''Bare Roots'', and ''Wrestling with Angels: A Tale of Two Brothers''. All were well received by the critics in journals such as the ''International Gay and Lesbian Review'', ''Sexuality and Culture: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly'', and ''Chiron Review''. The latter two novels are autobiographical stories about the coming of age and coming out of sensitive young men with deep
Christian fundamentalist Christian fundamentalism, also known as fundamental Christianity or fundamentalist Christianity, is a religious movement emphasizing biblical literalism. In its modern form, it began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries among British an ...
roots. ''Loud Whisper'' chronicles the frontman for an 80's rock band who, drunk and drugged out, falls from stage during a concert and becomes paralyzed. As always, Snider is concerned with spiritual decline and revitalization. Through the eyes of the frontman, Adam, his band members, his male and female lovers, and a journalist doing a story on him, Adam's spiritual and physical struggles unfold. A long-time lecturer at Cal State Long Beach, Snider retired in 2009. His first historical novel, ''The Plymouth Papers,'' was published by Spout Hill Press in February, 2014. The short novel examines the relationships between the 17th-century English settlers of Plymouth Colony and the native peoples they encountered, with a frame character from the 19th century who discovers the papers. Snider continued to write poetry, fiction, and criticism until his death. His full ''curriculum vitae'' is available on his own university web site.


Bibliography


Poetry

* ''Jesse Comes Back'' (1976) * ''Bad Smoke Good Body'' (1980) * ''Jesse and His Son'' (1982) * ''Edwin: A Character in Poems'' (1984) * ''Blood & Bones'' (1988) * ''Impervious to Piranhas'' (1989) * ''The Age of the Mother'' (1992) * ''The Alchemy of Opposites'' (2000) * ''Aspens in the Wind'' (2009) * ''Moonman: New and Selected Poems'' (2012) * ''The Beatle Bump'' (2016) *Stubborn Heart: New Poems (2021)


Novels

* ''Loud Whisper'' (2000) * ''Bare Roots'' (2001) * ''Wrestling with Angels: A Tale of Two Brothers'' (2001) * ''The Plymouth Papers'' (2014)


Literary criticism

* ''The Stuff That Dreams Are Made On: A Jungian Interpretation of Literature'' (1991)


References


External links


Clifton Snider biography and other informationClifton Snider Home Page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Snider, Clifton 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists American male novelists American gay writers Writers from California 1947 births Living people American literary critics Writers from Duluth, Minnesota Analytical psychology American LGBTQ poets American LGBTQ novelists LGBTQ people from Minnesota Novelists from Minnesota 20th-century American poets 21st-century American poets American male poets 21st-century American non-fiction writers American male non-fiction writers 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers Gay poets