Thomas A Clark was born in Greenock, Scotland. His poetry has been consistently attentive to form and to the experience of walking in the landscape, returning again and again to the lonely terrain of the Highlands and Islands.

In 1973, with the artist Laurie Clark, he started Moschatel Press. At first a vehicle for small publications by Ian Hamilton Finlay, Cid Corman, Jonathan Williams, Simon Cutts and others, it soon developed into a means of formal investigation within his own poetry, treating the book as imaginative space, the page as a framing device or as quiet around an image or a phrase, the turning of pages as revelation or delay.

From 1986, Laurie and Thomas A Clark have run Cairn Gallery, one of the earliest of ‘artist-run spaces’, specialising in Land Art, Minimalism and a lyrical or poetic Conceptualism. After many years in the Cotswolds, the Clarks moved in 2002 to re-open the gallery in Pittenweem.

In addition to his books and smaller publications, Clark has also made site-specific installations in galleries, in gardens or in the landscape, and has many works in permanent collections world-wide.

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Related links

› Thomas A Clark's website

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Books I love

An old favourite
The Dancers Inherit The Party
Ian Hamilton Finlay
Polygon

'Many of the motifs of the greatest Scottish poet of the age are present in these early poems. For a full understanding of his importance for poetic practice, you will have to gather a collection of small publications from the poet’s own Wild Hawthorn Press.'

A new favourite
The Book Of Matthew
Matthew Welton
Carcanet 2003

'Often working in series, with lively intelligence and skill, this
young poet builds larger structures beyond the easy satisfactions
of the single poem.'

A current interest
The Perception Of The Environment
Tim Ingold
Routledge 2000

'“By skills I do not mean techniques of the body, but the capabilities
of action and perception of the whole organic being (indissolubly
mind and body) situated in a richly structured environment.”

Thomas A Clark, March 2006

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Featured poem

in the half-light of dusk
after the day has prepared
hard surfaces for inspection
before the night has plunged
things back into themselves
there is a settlement in which
the external and the internal are
continuous with the evening air
if you are alone at the edge
of shadows you are not alone
the hours of light shine in you
with a compacted energy that
also burns in tree and stone
partly revealed and partly veiled

Thomas A Clark © 2006
from The Path to the Sea (Arc Publications 2006 )