John Clarke

Who was John Clarke?

John "Jack" Clarke was an American poet.

A noted poet, jazz musician and scholar of William Blake and Charles Olson, John "Jack" Clarke was the author of several books of poetry, essays and lectures, among them "From Feathers To Iron" and "In The Analogy," published posthumously in 1997. The latter title, a collection of more than 200 sonnets, stands as the culmination of Clarke's lifework in poetry.

As director of the Institute of Further Studies, he oversaw the series A Curriculum of the Soul. He taught for 29 years at the State University of New York at Buffalo. From 1989 to 1991 he edited intent: letter of talk, thinking, and document. In 1989 he was awarded the Ohioanna Poetry Award from the Ohio Library Association and in 1991, the prestigious Artists Fellowship for Poetry presented by the New York Foundation for the Arts.