Poet David Clark brings what one fellow poet has called 聽to the 草莓社区 campus during the final installment of the Writers Read Program. He鈥檒l read from his award-winning collection of poems at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 19, in the President鈥檚 Reception Room in the University Commons building.
Clark has described his own work as 鈥渁ppropriate for any reader of contemporary poetry, but particularly for readers of Southern poetry, readers interested in the intersection of poetry and theology and readers attracted to formal invention in lyric verse.鈥�
His manuscript Reveille won the , which included publication and $5,000 in prize money, one of the largest monetary remunerations among poetry contests.
, available through the University of Arkansas Press, is described as 鈥渢heologically playful, rhetorically sophisticated, and formally ambitious [鈥 rooted in awe and driven by the impulse to praise.鈥�
“David Clark’s bold and incisive verse startles us into examining and subsequently rejoicing in the ordinary details of our everyday lives,鈥� said Marti Eads, professor of language and literature.
Born in Savannah and raised in Chattanooga and Little Rock, Clark earned his bachelor鈥檚 degree at Union University, an MFA at University of Virginia, and a PhD in English at Texas Tech University. He is visiting assistant professor of literature and interdisciplinary honors at Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Indiana, where he held a postdoctoral fellowship from 2012-2014.
Clark has also published in the Alaska Quarterly Review, The Believer, Blackbird, Southwest Review, Yale Review as well as in a variety of anthologies and special series.聽His other honors include the Olive B. O鈥機onnor Fellowship in Poetry at Colgate University, the Guy Owen Prize of the Southern Poetry Review, the 30 Below Prize of Narrative Magazine, and a Tennessee Williams Scholarship from the Sewanee Writer鈥檚 Conference.聽He has served on the staffs of Meridian, Virginia Quarterly Review, Iron Horse Literary Magazine, and the Best New Poets听补苍迟丑辞濒辞驳测.
Since 2011, he has served as editor-in-chief and executive director of the biannual journal , which is distributed to subscribers in more than 20 countries. In 2013, the journal聽began publishing bi-weekly prose features online. A partnership with teachers of creative writing links editors and students with current published works, and invites student contributions on the .