Jeff Clark (born 1971) is an American poet and book designer.

Biography

Clark grew up in

southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal reg ...

. He studied at

UC Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Davis, California, United States. It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University ...

and completed a

Master of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admi ...

in poetry at the

Iowa Writer's Workshop The Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa, is a graduate-level creative writing program. At 89 years, it is the oldest writing program offering a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in the United States. Its acceptance rate is between 2 ...

. At Davis, Clark drummed for the band Buick, whose album ''Sweatertongue'' was released by Lather Records in 1992. In 1995, he moved to

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, where he wrote poetry, edited the

zine A zine ( ; short for ''magazine'' or ''fanzine'') is, as noted on Merriam-Webster’s official website, a magazine that is a “noncommercial often homemade or online publication usually devoted to specialized and often unconventional subject ...

''Faucheuse,'' and worked at a book design studio.

Writing

Clark's first book, ''The Little Door Slides Back,'' was a 1996 winner of the

National Poetry Series The National Poetry Series is an American literary awards program. Every year since 1979, the National Poetry Series has sponsored the publication of five books of poetry. Manuscripts are solicited through an annual open competition, judged and c ...

award. It was published by Sun and Moon Press in 1997, and reprinted in 2004 by

Farrar, Straus and Giroux Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG) is an American book publishing company, founded in 1946 by Roger Williams Straus Jr. and John C. Farrar. FSG is known for publishing literary books, and its authors have won numerous awards, including Pulitzer P ...

. John Yau, writing in ''

Boston Review ''Boston Review'' is an American quarterly political and literary magazine. It publishes political, social, and historical analysis, literary and cultural criticism, book reviews, fiction, and poetry, both online and in print. Its signature form ...

'', said that Clark evoked "a fragile, interior world largely lit by the moon, cheap paperbacks, and noir movies, a place in which predicaments and paradoxes abound." Farrar Straus Giroux also published Clark's second collection, ''Music and Suicide,'' which received the 2004

James Laughlin Award The James Laughlin Award, formerly the Lamont Poetry Prize, is given annually for a poet's second published book; it is the only major poetry award that honors a second book. The award is given by the Academy of American Poets, and is noted as on ...

. John Beer in ''Chicago Review'' said "its ambition is more erotic than programmatic, which makes it hard to place in a critical landscape dominated by twin towers of linguistic materialism and idle taste-mongering. But if this erotic ambition is one more aspect of Clark's untimeliness, that untimeliness may allow him to escape mere datedness to disclose a new poetic future for us all." In 2000, German artist Cosima von Bonin created an installation entitled ''The Little Door Slides Back'' for the Kunstverein Braunschweig. Also in 2000, Z Press published ''Sun On 6,'' which was printed by Leslie Miller at The Grenfell Press. In addition to Clark's poem, it contains Jasper Johns' first linocut. In June 2006, Clark and Geoffrey G. O'Brien released a collaborative book entitled ''2A'', and in 2009, Turtle Point Press published ''Ruins,'' a limited edition book that Clark wrote, illustrated, and designed. With Robert Bononno, Clark translated

Stéphane Mallarmé Stéphane Mallarmé ( , ; ; 18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), pen name of Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French Symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools o ...

's ''

Un Coup de Dés Jamais N'Abolira Le Hasard The United Nations (UN) is the global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and security, to develop friendly relations among st ...

'' (Wave Books, 2015). In 2017, Image Text Ithaca released ''Question Like a Face''. a limited-edition collaborative work, with text by

Christine Hume Christine Hume (born 1968) is an American poet and essayist. She is the author of three books of poetry, ''Musca Domestica'' (2000), ''Alaskaphrenia'' (2004), and ''Shot'' (2010) and two works of nonfiction, Saturation Project' and '' Her chapboo ...

and image treatments by Clark.

Book Design

Clark's

book design Book design is the graphic art of determining the visual and physical characteristics of a book. The design process begins after an author and editor finalize the manuscript, at which point it is passed to the production stage. During productio ...

studio, Crisis, is based in

Ypsilanti, Michigan Ypsilanti ( ), commonly shortened to Ypsi ( ), is a college town and city located on the Huron River in Washtenaw County, Michigan, Washtenaw County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city's popu ...

. He has designed books for, among others, AK Press, University of Minnesota Press, Flood Editions, Leon Works, Kelsey Street Press, the Jargon Society,

Dalkey Archive Press Dalkey Archive Press is an American publisher of fiction, poetry, foreign translations and literary criticism specializing in the publication or republication of lesser-known, often avant-garde works. The company has offices in Funks Grove, Il ...

, Wave Books, Farrar Straus Giroux, Black Square Editions,

City Lights Books City Lights is an independent bookstore-publisher combination in San Francisco, California, that specializes in world literature, the arts, and progressive politics. It also houses the nonprofit City Lights Foundation, which publishes selected ...

, and MOCAD (Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit). He also designs the covers for ''Two Lines'', the literary journal from the Center for the Art of Translation. In January 2008, ''Publishers Weekly'' wrote: "Clark has become one of poetry's most prolific and influential book designers, whose distinctive treatments—characterized by spacious covers; hip, angular fonts; varied elements that elide into one another—a frequent poetry reader could recognize from a distance."Craig Morgan Teicher
"A Poet's Cover,"
''Publishers Weekly,'' January 28, 2008.

References

External links

Crisis
{{DEFAULTSORT:Clark, Jeff 1971 births American male poets University of California, Davis alumni People from Ypsilanti, Michigan Living people Book designers 21st-century American poets 21st-century American male writers