Clarence Major

Poet, novelist, and painter Clarence Major was born in 1936 in Atlanta. He received a BS from the State University of New York and a PhD from the Union for Experimenting Colleges and Universities.

Major’s numerous books of poetry include Sporadic Troubleshooting (Louisiana State University Press, 2022); Down and Up (University of Georgia Press, 2013); Myself Painting (Louisiana State University Press, 2008); Waiting for Sweet Betty (Copper Canyon Press, 2002); Configurations: New & Selected Poems 1958–1998 (Copper Canyon Press, 1999); and Some Observations of a Stranger at Zuni in the Latter Part of the Century (Sun & Moon Press, 1998). He has also edited many anthologies of poetry, such as The Garden Thrives: Twentieth-Century African-American Poetry (HarperCollins, 1995); Dictionary of Afro-American Slang (Internal Publications, 1994); and The Dark and Feeling: Black American Writers and Their Work (Third Press, 1974). 

In response to Down and Up, poet Yusef Komunyakaa noted,

Clarence Major has written a collection of poetry that celebrates being human. Small moments expand into treatises of love and doubt, life and art, and it all seems so natural. Here’s a poet who has mastered a language he owns through personal rhythm, and he knows what it takes to transcend.

Major is also the author of numerous fiction and nonfiction prose works, including The Glint of Light (At Bay Press, 2023); Golden Gate and Other Stories (Ravenna Press, 2023); One Flesh (Kensington, 2013); and Come By Here: My Mother’s Life (Trade Paper Press, 2002), a memoir about his mother. He is also an accomplished visual artist. In 2019, he released The Paintings and Drawings of Clarence Major (University Press of Mississippi), the first volume in which he has collected his paintings and drawings, composed over six decades. The following year, he released The Essential Clarence Major: Prose and Poetry (University of North Carolina Press, 2020).

Major’s many honors include a Western States Book Award for Fiction, a Pushcart Prize, and a fellowship from the National Council on the Arts. He was a professor at twelve different universities before he was a professor of English and creative writing for eighteen years at the University of California, Davis. He retired in 2007. In 2021, Major was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame. The following year, he was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Georgia Writers.