Tom Clark: Some Good Wishes

Much beloved poet and friend to many via his wonderful blog and work, Tom Clark, is really going through a rough patch after being hit by a car a few weeks back.  Tom is at home but still faces a mighty uphill climb, not the least challenging of which is the health care system.  He is in pain and has a long way to go.

Let's all who know him send him our best (and maybe even if you don't know him - a little compassion goes a long way). A note of well wishing in the comment section of his blog Beyond the Pale might be just the ticket.

I've had a couple of Tom's books on hand for awhile here, meaning to do a post or posts on them both.  One is a wonderful chapbook of translations, TRANS/VERSIONS, the other is an excellent full length book of poems, The New World.

The translations/renderings are fine, measured, insightful poems, from the likes of Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Mallarmé, Reverdy, Vallejo, and Brecht.  A small volume that packs a decided wallop, Tom's is a refreshing, universal take on these masters, not at all pinned to a time or place, unless you call either the human experience.
 

 Photo by Juliet Clark

Since he is ill-disposed, I haven't had a chance to ask if it would be ok to reprint a poem or two, so you'll just have to take my word: both The New World and TRANS/VERSIONS are joys to hold and behold.  I can't think of a better way to lift a poet's spirits than to buy a book or two of work.  Visit Libellum Books at this or the two links above, or pick them up from SPD: Small Press Distribution.

So, how's about we give our friend a lift; a kind word or two, a couple of wrinkled bucks (tip of the hat, Ed), and maybe he'll have a little something to smile about?

Tom, we are all thinking about you.  Wishing you a steady, strong recovery.  And best to Angelica.

Cheers,
Don


P.S:  I've just heard from Angelica - Tom was sleeping before heading back still again to the doctor later today - that Tom had just approved the proofs of a new collection, Distance, before the accident and it is now ready for sale.

I'm jazzed and I am heading over to amazon to buy a copy now (there is an exception to every rule - my no amazon in this case goes out the window). It is published by BlazeVOX and here is the link:

Distance.

So, if you are missing Tom's voice right now, as so many of us are, here's your chance.

waiting and waiting
for sunset...
the willow tree

     Issa
     translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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Leaky Lifeboat (for Gregory Corso): Issa's Sunday Service, #101

This week was the birthday of the fab Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth and so this week's selection for the Sunday Service comes from Sonic Youth and is entitled Leaky Lifeboat (for Gregory Corso).  Paste Magazine in a review of The Eternal album, from which "Leaky Lifeboat (for Gregory Corso)" comes, says that the song draws inspiration from the deceased New York beat poet and his poem “Leaky Lifeboat Boys,” comparing life on this planet to a vessel with a hole in it."

Here's the original Corso poem, which the song riffs off.

Sonic Youth has been a long time favorite of mine and here's why in a perfect, exhilirating live performance of "Leaky Lifeboat":






And finally, an interesting rendition of Corso's poem "The Whole Mess ... Almost," by someone sounding an awful lot like John Cale.  Enjoy.





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Prompted by this week's Wednesday Haiku feature on fireflies by Bob Carleton, Tom Clark posted a beautiful response, with amazing photographs and an even more amazing poem by Andrew Marvell.  Kindly, he dedicated it me.

Tom's regular sharing of wisdom, poetics, and wonder at his blog, Beyond the Pale, is one of the finest examples of poetry/poetics on the web.  It is well worth checking out regularly.  Tom is one of the finest poets of his generation and his generosity, wit, and lyricism come through with gentle, assured strength.


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This week's feature poem comes from Lilliput Review #95, from which 4 poems were featured in a previous post.

Riding the Curved Bowl

We're traveling together so we can't see
we're traveling at the speed of light--
our feet are years from our eyes;
To observers standing in another place,
on fulcra different from ours,
we look like we might be standing still,
when we're leaving before we've arrived.

                        Pendarvis

leaving my shoulder
for the Buddha's...
dragonfly

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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Peter Orlovsky, 1933-2010

Peter Orlovsky (Allen Ginsberg)

Peter Orlovsky: a beautiful remembrance from Tom Clark and accounting of his passing by Anne Waldman.

today again
death draws nearer...
the wildflowers

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

Jim Carroll by Tom Clark

Photograph by Mary K. Greer

One of the finest artist produced blogs on the net is by the great poet, Tom Clark. Beyond the Pale serves as a model for poets and writers wishing to produce content and extend the dialogue of author/reader beyond the printed page into the much vaunted digital world. The net is not a source of promotion for Clark, as the book before it was not the point of writing; it is the connection of one mind to another or, in the case of writers, many others. I, as a reader, like to think of the experience as one on one, poet and reader, one at a time.

The line may be long, but the poet will get to you eventually.

Back on September 11th 2009, when the poetic/writing community lost Jim Carroll, it hit a particular segment very hard. Disbelief, as it always is with untimely death, was the predominant reaction. One looks around, shakes one's head, tries to get mind around the idea of death. Grief prompts something like an irrational, inconsolable searching. We've all been there, with those closest to us to those we "know," share a deep kinship with, through their work.

It is significant that we characterize this type of kinship with the feeling of having been "touched"; I was deeply touched by the work of Jim Carroll. And for others, like myself, who went looking for an "explanation," or that other type of kinship, shared mourning, we found something profoundly moving.

We found Tom Clark on Jim Carroll.

Back in September, on the 14th, a mere 3 days after Jim's passing, Tom Clark posted his memories of Jim. Somehow, his glimpses into the life of Carroll were just what folks needed to hear. The few scenes were significant, sketched as they were by his friend Clark, a powerful memoirist. Those glimpses, with a touch of poetry by both poets, began a healing process for a community of readers who had always felt that Jim was close to them in spirit.

I'm happy to say, though blogs come and go as quickly as the seasons, Bob Arnold of Longhouse Publications has published Tom's post in a little 23 page booklet that, with the exception of a one photo and minus one or two that were on the blog, essentially replicates that post in its entirety.

The handful of tales Clark recounts of Carroll signify. Jim's deep bond with his dog during his protracted period of kicking dope, his reluctance at pickup games of basketball, his reaching out to a woman reading her poetry at a rehab session, all of these moments, though seemingly small details in a much larger life, feel like a full portrait of a poet that many a whole biography might fail to capture. Clark's account of his own distaste for poetry readings quickly dissipates watching Jim reading to a room of 10 fellow recovering substance abusers:

It was totally mesmerizing; I felt privileged, uplifted, and scared. While reading Jim seemed to leave himself and become the conductor of energies from another place. I understood then I was in the presence of a master, his powers palpable yet perhaps beyond the understanding of anyone present.

Jim Carroll fans will always have Living at the Movies, The Book of Nods, The Basketball Diaries, Fear of Dreaming, Void of Course and Forced Entries, as well as his great rock recordings. And now we have this little set of scenes in which Jim comes to life once again in a way that only a friend and master stylist can make happen. Though it might be both premature and presumptuous to think the inevitable full length biography might not capture Jim as well as this short little memoir, it can surely be said that no one will capture the tone and feel of Tom Clark's thoughts on the great Jim Carroll. If you think this is just the publication for you, jump at it since this little booklet is a limited run (see Tom's note about run in comments below) . I know it will always sit right next to Jim's work on the shelf with all of his writings I have on hand.

There is a photo, by Beatrice Murch, that concludes the book and wasn't on Tom's original post [CORRECTION: This photo did appear in Tom's original post. See his comment, below.] It is a photo of a path out in Bolinas just like the ones Clark describes Jim as often traversing with his dog, Jo'mama, all the while wrestling with loneliness and his various demons. Perhaps it is one of the very paths he walked.

A path that is now empty.

The Birth and Death of the Sun

Now the trees tempt
the young girl below them

each moves off the other's wind
endlessly, as stars from the earth,
stars from the stars.

Jim Carroll

Thanks to Bob Arnold for making this available.

And thanks to Tom Clark, for everything.

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This week's featured poem comes from Lilliput Review #100, a broadside by Cid Corman entitled "You Don't Say."

Here is a
long way off
and as far
as you'll've
ever got.

Cid Corman

at my feet
when did you get here?
snail

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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PS Books mentioned in this post. Support Independent booksellers.

Living at the Movies
The Book of Nods
The Basketball Diaries
Fear of Dreaming
Void of Course
Forced Entries

Jim Carroll 3

Tom Clark, one of today's finest poets, was a friend of Jim Carroll. Read his extraordinary recollections of Jim @ his fine blog: they are revelatory.

Don