PBS NewsHour Remembers Tom Clark

NewsHour's Jennifer Hijazi remembers poet and biographer Tom Clark, who died unexpectedly at the age of 77 after he was hit by a car while walking in Berkeley. "Prolific poet and biographer Tom Clark died this month at the age of 77, leaving behind a substantial body of writing that exemplifies his penchants for lyricism, wit, and brevity, as well as a lifelong love of baseball," she writes. From there: 

Clark was struck by a car in his hometown of Berkeley, California, on the evening of Friday, Aug. 17 while walking outside of the crosswalk at an intersection. He was transported to a hospital alive, but died of his injuries the next morning.

Friends and poetry organizations expressed their sadness at Clark’s death. In a phone interview with the New York Times, poet Ron Padgett said Clark’s subtle work was “music to the ear” and always left readers feeling “elevated.”

“Stunned and shocked” by the news, The Allen Ginsberg Project wrote that he was “singularly adept, seemingly effortless, absolutely exemplary, lyric poet, author of numerous volumes (too many to mention here).”

Clark — born in Oak Park, Illinois, in 1941 — first fostered a passion for poetry at the University of Michigan, where he became a favorite student of the late former poet laureate Donald Hall (who himself died at the age of 89 in June).

After Clark graduated in 1963, he was hired as the poetry editor for the Paris Review with a recommendation from Hall, who had once held the job and would later say in this year’s American Poetry Review that “Tom Clark was the best student [he] ever had.”

Learn more at NewsHour.