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Originally from Providence, Rhode Island,Clark Coolidgeis the author of more than fifty books of poetry, includingA Book Beginning What and Ending Away, Selected Poems: 1962-1985, The Land of All TimeandTo the Cold Heart. In 2011, he editedPhilip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversationsfor University of California Press. Initially a drummer, he was a member of David Meltzer's Serpent Power in 1967 and Mix group in 19931994. More recently, Coolidge has performed duos with Thurston Moore (Among the Poetry Stricken, on Fast Speaking Music) and free improv with Ouroboros. He now lives in Petaluma, California. Peter Gizzi is the author of many books of poetry, including In Defense of Nothing: Selected Poems 19872011. He teaches at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He lives in Melrose, Massachusetts. Jason Morris was born and raised in Vermont. He is the author of ten books and chapbooks, including Low Life (Bird & Beckett Books, 2021); Different Darknesses (FMSBW, 2019); Levon Helm (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2018), and Spirits & Anchors (Auguste Presse, 2010). He lives in San Francisco, California.
"“In The Crystal Text by Clark Coolidge, language is restored to its original grace. And what is the origin of language? Is it innovation? Does it subvert while instructing? This poem brings the written word to life. It was written in the 1980s, serving as a deep source for poets and all those who cherish literature. The poet spars with history, memory, and what it means to be fully human. An informative afterward is a rare treat.”—Neeli Cherkovski, author of The Crow and I “Clark Coolidge is a one-man avant-garde.”—Peter Gizzi, author of Archeophonics “A long-time master of the jazzy long work.”—Bernadette Mayer, author of Works and Days ""[I]f one merely lies open to it, Coolidge's arresting words will sink in and provide a seldom experienced refreshment. This is still true and the receding monumentality of his landscape enterprise is fuller today than ever before. We are lucky to live in the world he chooses to reflect back at us.""—John Ashbery, author of Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror “In poem after poem he produces lines of abstract, bright, musical phrasing”—Michael Leddy, World Literature Today “An inexhaustible writer capable of taking a subject, any subject, and improvising endless bebop glissandos around it.”—Eliot Weinberger, author of Karmic Traces: 1993-1999 “Clark Coolidge is unquestionably among the finest and most legendary American poets of our time.”—Caesura “Nothing can prepare you for the experience of reading Clark Coolidge’s poetry. You can listen to Cecil Taylor, Thelonious Monk, and the Rova Quartet; you can read the Beats, and examine every Philip Guston painting; you can go spelunking and spend days staring at rock structures. You can even memorize every word of Gertrude Stein and Samuel Beckett and recite it all as a soundtrack to a black-and-white cowboy movie. These may contextualize some of the elements in Coolidge’s work, but they will not adequately equip you for the heady mixture of intellectual pleasure, semantic frustration, and visceral musicality that Coolidge’s work is likely to provoke.”—Jake Marmer, Hyperallergic “Coolidge subjects the comforting syntax of traditional lyric to a radical torque as a means of discovering new possibilities of song.”—Aldon L. Neilson, Pacific Coast Philology"
