A sniff of iron-cold, the taste of wet damp, and a half-tree, half-woman wearing a dress "knitted together from the delta shapes / of cottonwood leaves" are just a few of the sensory images conjured up by the poetry of Patricia Clark in her new book, My Father on a Bicycle. The award-winning poet-in-residence and professor of writing at Grand Valley State University, in Allendale, Michigan, was named in March as the next poet laureate for the city of Grand Rapids. She is the second person appointed the 2-year position.
Clark was also the recipient of a Creative Artist Grant from ArtServe Michigan for 2003.This new book includes some of her work from the grant, with poems focusing on the Grand River, especially Riverside Park, as a meditative landscape discovering how "wisdom is moving water. "
Other poems make a spiritual journey from the Pacific Northwest forests of her childhood. They explore the themes of love, mortality, and loss in the setting of the natural world, as in the deserted road/impossible to find now, overgrown and gone. In the outdoors, near rivers and on walks, the speaker in these lyrical poems meditates on subjects she observes, celebrates life, and explores memory.
Clark describes her poetry by quoting a line from the English poet William Blake, "Dip him in the river who loves water."
"I see my poetry as dipping the reader into a river, into an ebb and flow of imagery, thought, and feeling," says Clark. "I see my poems as meditations, as journeys to a place where a "momentary stay against confusion" (to quote Robert Frost) can be found.
Clark won the first book award from Women in Literature for her previous book of poetry, North of Wondering. She is also the co-editor of Worlds in Our Words: An Anthology of Contemporary American Women Writers. Her poems have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, Slate, Strand, New England Review, North American Review, Pennsylvania Review, Black Warrior Review, and Seattle Review.
Upcoming events:
March:
March 18, Friday, Michigan State University, East
Lansing, Michigan: Patricia will be reading from My Father on a
Bicycle, at 7:30 p.m. in the Main Library's Conference Room W449. This
free event will be part of MSU Library's Michigan Writers Series,
Spring 2005.
March 21, Monday, Grand Valley State University, Allendale Campus:
Patricia will launch her new book of poetry, My Father on a
Bicycle, during a noon reading, booksigning and reception in the
Performing Arts Center Van Solkema Recital Hall.
April: National Poetry Month
Friday, April 1, BookFair/MSU Press
booth, AWP conference, Vancouver, BC, 3 p.m. Reading and booksigning.
Thursday, April 7, Fremont Area District Library, Fremont, MI, 7 p.m. Reading and booksigning.
Thursday, April 14, Schuler Books & Music, 28th Street store, 7 p.m. Reading and booksigning/reception.
APRIL 19 PATRICIA CLARK WILL OFFICIALLY BEGIN HER TENURE AS GRAND RAPIDS POET LAUREATE AT A SPECIAL NATIONAL POETRY MONTH CELEBRATION AT 7 P.M. IN THE KRETCHMER RECITAL HALL AT AQUINAS COLLEGE. SHE AND CURRENT POET LAUREATE, LINDA NEMEC-FOSTER WILL BOTH READ FROM THEIR OWN WORK AS WELL AS SELECTED POEMS BY POETS WHO HAVE INFLUENCED THEM.
Wednesday, April 20, Spring Lake Public Library, Spring Lake, MI, 6 p.m. Reading and booksigning.
Wednesday, April 27, Frederick Meijer Gardens, 10th Anniversary Celebration and reading, 6:30
May:
Friday, May 13, Society for the Study of Midwestern
Literature Conference & Midwest Poetry Festival, MSU Campus, East
Lansing, MI.
Tuesday, May 17, Grandville Literary Society, Grandville, MI.
Note: Author photo and book cover art available
