Not nostalgia transports us here, but the sweet pulse of "vanished ephemerae", love of the Voyage, the illumination, and "throbbing rituals" of a life lived always inside poetry. Tom Clark's prodigious archive of memory trembles on the edge of a teetering universe, calls us back toward the imagination of Reverdy, Vallejo, Ungaretti as witness to the power and thrust and ethos of language. "The universe is strange, the universe is dangerous, the universe doesn't answer the phone." Indeed. But Clark does answer here for all us dreamers. -Anne Waldman I read At the Fair driving through the vertiginous rock castles of Utah on the way to Moab, and it hit me like a gong in perfect synch with the incredible landscape. Memory, time, and the suffering of puny humans who resonate nonetheless with beauty, are indelible in this work; it is majestic, profound, and smart. For a language-user that's about the utmost. You can read this in a cave and you'll know grandeur. -Andrei Codrescu Tom Clark (born March 1, 1941) is an American poet, editor and biographer. Clark was born on the Near West Side of Chicago and married Angelica Heinegg, at St. Mark's Church, New York City, on March 22, 1968. Currently (as of 2009) residing in California, Tom Clark's recent books of poetry include AT THE FAIR (BlazeVOX Books, 2010), SOMETHING IN THE AIR (Shearsman Books, 2010), FEELING FOR THE GROUND (BlazeVOX Books, 2010), THE NEW WORLD (Libellum Books, 2010), TRANS/VERSIONS (Libellum Books, 2010), LIGHT AND SHADE: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS (Coffee House, 2006), and Threnody (effing press, 2006).