Tom Clark – When Things Get Tough on Easy Street (1978, Black Sparrow 1st)

Description

Tom Clark’s poetry emerged in the slipstream between Beat romanticism and postmodern cool. A poet, biographer, and longtime poetry editor of The Paris Review, Clark brought wit, clarity, and West Coast chill to his work—never flashy, but always tuned to the right emotional frequency. His poems hum with the music of observation and detachment, where loss is part joke and part prayer. By the time this volume appeared in 1978, Clark was a respected literary figure and one of the few poets equally admired by New York intellectuals and Bay Area anarchists.

When Things Get Tough on Easy Street is Clark’s selected poems from 1963 to 1978—published by Black Sparrow Press, the house that John & Barbara Martin built (and where Clark would serve as both author and friend). Martin published Clark alongside Bukowski, Creeley, and Dorn, helping define a postmodern small press aesthetic that was typographically bold and politically unbothered. One of Clark’s essential collections, and a touchstone for Black Sparrow Press completists.

For readers of outsider American poetry, or anyone building a Black Sparrow shelf that goes deeper than Bukowski—this one’s non-negotiable.