User:Robert McClenon/Clive Matson

Clive Matson is a poet and teacher.

Biography

Clive was born in 1941 in Los Angeles, CA, to a retired aerospace engineer and avocado orchard manager and housewife. His mother was the daughter of a New York City Wobbly newspaper editor. Clive received a four year scholarship to the University of Chicago in geology (he's been a lifelong rock-hound), he left after a little over a year, he registered to the University of Cal at Riverside but never attended class. In the eighties he received a MFA in creative writing from Columbia University, for his thesis he had performed his play "Cactus" at Carnegie Hall.

In the spring of 1961 he joined his lover Erin Black in Aarhus, Denmark after working his way across the Atlantic on a Greek freighter. They hitch-hiked down the continent having many adventures, some amazing, some frightening to Karistos, Greece where they stayed with the family of the second cabin boy on the ship. August they spent in Athens watching movies in outdoor theatres. They then hitched to Madrid where they lived in an apartment for most of the winter, then they traveled by train to Morocco, to Casablanca where they met the then Readers' Digest writer of "The Most Amazing Person I've Ever Known" section of the magazine: Alex Haley. As their funds had been depleted by poker games on board the Yugoslavian freighter to New York City, Alex had them stay a night at his apartment in the city. Clive had gotten sick on the passage and he then convalesced at the apt of Irving Rosenthal whom he had met while waiting for the Greek freighter the preceding June. He had also met the poets Diane Di Prima and Edward Dorn at this time. In June he rented a four room apartment on Saint Marks Place and sent for Erin who had returned to Berkeley after debarking from the freighter. During those years they met and befriended Herbert Huncke, and became close to Eila Kokkinen who had been the art editor of "Big Table", the periodical Irving had edited in Chicago. In 1964 he and Erin married in a Pure Land Buddhist ceremony out of his parent's house in Vista. They honeymooned in Puerto Angel Mexico, where Van Buskirk and David Rattray, poets from Dartmouth College had summered years before. In 1970 Erin and Clive divorced.

Career

Clive moved back to Berkeley where he worked for the Oakland College of Arts and Crafts as a creative writing teacher. This began a long-term teacher's work. In 1990 he met the poet Gail Ford, and they married in 1995, they adopted a son Ezra John, named after Ezra Pound and the poet John Wieners. In 2013 he received a life-time achievement award at the 10th annual Berkeley Poet Festival. He has published a quarterly journal since 1996: "The Scribbler". In 2003 he was awarded the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award - wikipedia, the free encyclopedia recipient 2003 for the anthology "An Eye for an Eye Makes the Whole World Blind" co-edited with Allen Cohen.

Publications

• Illustrated by Erin with cover art by Ross Perez and published by Di Prima's Poet's Press: "Mainline to the Heart" 1966, with a forward by John Wieners and re-issued in 2007 with additional poems from the same time by Regent's Press. This second edition has an afterward by Diane di Prima.
• "Space Age" 1969 Croton Press cover by Maggie Cloherty and drawings by Renie Perkins
• "Equal in Desire" ManRoot Press 1983 artwork by Renee June and including a blurb by Robert Bly
• "Shaved at Dawn" with John Oliver Simon, Aldeberan Review, Neon Sun 1984
• "On the Inside" Cherry Valley Editions 1982. Graphics by David Kelso and photo by Naomi Schif. This book contains a note that the publication was made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts
• "Squish Boots", Broken Shadow Publications: (for his youngster, conceived of and designed by Gail Ford)
• "Songs of Chalcedony" in two volumes, written from a feminine point of view. Minotaur Press Port Towsend, WA Chalcedony's First Ten Songs" 2007, " Chalcedony's Second Ten Songs" 2009.
• A book on writing: "Let the Crazy Child Write" New World Library, Novato CA, 1998. A revised edition of this book is in progress.
• An anthology of over a hundred poems written after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Edited by Clive and the late Allen Cohen: "An Eye for an Eye Makes the Whole World Blind",

Some of these books or part of the editions are letterpress. Clive learned letterpress type setting in 1965 by a woman who had worked for Grabhorn Press in San Francisco in her youth. On her press he printed a Ray Bremser poem: "the Crying of Children". Following: a very few of the many publications where Clive's writing can be found: SILVER; FOR NOW #15; HANGING LOOSE; Nob Hill Gazette; Yellow Silk.

• Towers Down Two Poems Diane di Prima & Clive Matson Eidolon Editions 2002. For an anniversary reading at Bird Becket Books on September 11, 2002. Readers included Diane di Prima, Clive Matson and David Meltzer.

External links

• Clive Matson reads Chalcedony Song 12
• Clive Matson segment aired on San Francisco Public Access TV
• website: Matsonpoet.com
• Clive Matson@Quiet lightning with Gail Alcock on cello
• Beat Poet Alden Van Buskirk: Archive.org]...]Community Video
• Poetry Foundation Garet Caples on "Lami".
• savvyverseandwit.com/2009/05/.interview with poet-clive-matson-author.html
• redroom.com clive-matson/...clive-matson-reads-love-poems-from-ch... Sacred Ground Cafe yahoo groups on "Chalcedony"
• www.beatnikghosts.com
• meetup.com/Matson_writing-excursions/ organizers Charlie Lenk and Clive Matson at Harbin Hot Springs www.thetriskelion.org
• groups.yahoo.com/group/sfbay-aware/message/3245
• KPFA radio show Jack Foley on "Hourglass": "The commontary prose is as beautiful equal to the poetry continual tilt toward balance: important aspect both in your teaching and writing. Looking outward and looking inward."
• From a Review on goodreads.com of "Squish Boots": by Susan Griffin: "Delightful and penetrating at the same time. These poems are a revelation."