Clark Coolidge

is an American poet born in Providence, Rhode Island.  He was, perhaps more than any other person, responsible for inspiring the entire experimental field of Language Poetry, which became popular among avant – garde, mostly American poets, during the 1960s and 1970s.  His association with the Language School, his experience as a jazz drummer, and his interest in a wide array of subjects including caves, geology, bebop, weather, Salvador Dali, Jack Kerouac, and movies often finds correspondence in his work.  His most recent books are The Act of Providence, a long poem about his home town (Combo Books, 2012), and This Time We Are Both, the result of a trip to the USSR with the Rova Saxophone Quartet in 1989.  He lives in Petaluma, California.