Thomas A Clark Symposium

A Space Apart: A Symposium on the Poetry and Practice of Thomas A Clark
Scottish Poetry Library, Edinburgh
Saturday 7 May 2016 – 10:00am – 8:00pm
Bookings

In association with the Centre for Poetic Innovation, Universities of Dundee

A unique day of talks, readings, film, music, exhibition displays, and walking, exploring the poetry and practice of Thomas A Clark and his imprint, Moschatel Press.

Join us for a stimulating day to reflect on themes of landscape, walking, and the possibilities of form in poetry and small press publishing. As well as talks and discussions, throughout the day there will be a series of short ‘delays’, or interventions, such as films, music, and short readings.

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.