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Hello, everybody.

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I wanted to reiterate
the thank yous again

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to POG to Intermezzo
to the Poetry Center.

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And, of course, to Clark
and Susan for being here.

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Thank you so much.

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[APPLAUSE]

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I also wanted to
say thank you very

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much to Teré and to
Michael for such a--

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setting up such an
amazing evening.

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So thank you very
much, both of you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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And I'm paraphrasing here,
I hope correctly, Teré, I

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don't quite sound
like what I think.

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I think that could be a
way to begin describing

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Clark Coolidge's work.

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I don't quite sound
like what I think.

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The poet and drummer,
Clark Coolidge,

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is responsible for what is
perhaps my favorite sentence,

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"putting back the rusty disk
to cover any strata that

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might be loose."

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I'll say it again, "putting
back the rusty disk

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to cover any strata
that might be loose."

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That's from Smithsonian
Depositions.

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Structure and chaos, figure and
ground, rock and loose strata,

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rhythm and noise.

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Coolidge makes work that lives
within and confuses the space

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between these dichotomies.

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From his early work, drifting
through the James Bond novels

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and creating montage sonnets, to
his recent place based project,

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The Act of Providence, to
the publication this year

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of his long awaited long prose
work A Book Beginning What

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and Ending Away, Coolidge's
work has endlessly

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tracked the strange
magnetisms, rhythmic stutters,

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and sonic surprises of
the English language.

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His poetry makes us
aware of all those things

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that words have that we
don't often hear, what he

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himself has called a universe
of qualities other than those

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of descriptive relation.

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Hardness, density, sound,
shape, vector force, and degrees

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of transparency, opacity.

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Without giving up
on words, Coolidge

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retrieves sound as thought, as
if this eminently useful thing

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we call language could
be turned on itself

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and heard as the
music that it is.

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Perhaps, Coolidge's
work seems to imply,

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we are all musicians,
improvisers

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of the everyday in language.

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World makers on a
bebop line like this.

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"But has come over popular
on the Canarsie carbon

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lines, a test to string it out
between finger and trestle.

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The windows are dimmed,
felt in mint orange.

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A train line your air car,
but it sticks out along.

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The schoolbook is lost
behind the paintings.

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And the merriness gone gorge.

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Summer is a pant, a
cup of Za-Rex thrown

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back later in the bebop line.

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I've got teeth, you've got."

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From American Ones: Noise
In Its Presentiments.

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Clark Coolidge has
published over 30 books

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of poetry and prose, including
Space, published by Harper Row.

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This Time, We Are Both by
Ugly Duckling Presse, Solution

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Passage with Sun and Moon, Sound
as Thought with Green Integer.

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And most recently, A
Book Beginning What

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and Ending Away and 88
Sonnets, both with Fence Books.

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A collaborator with Philip
Guston, Bernadette Mayer,

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Anne Waldman, David Meltzer,
Thurston Moore, and the list

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goes on and on.

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Coolidge connects
many threads of

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contemporary American poetry.

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From the New York School to
today's experimental lyricists,

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Coolidge is there as a
powerful presence in both

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using language as a critical
tool, an aesthetic machine,

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and, ultimately,
as a saving grace.

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Please welcome Clark Coolidge.

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Thank you.

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