The Little Door Slides Back (New American Poetry) [Paperback]

Jeff Clark (Author)

Book Description

Series: New American Poetry | Publication Date: March 1, 2000

But then, from way off, with cranking
comes my night, and when it arrives
I go to it like a callboy to a c-note.
--"My Interior"

"Jeff Clark's poems . . . marry the stoned reveries of our postmodern era with the symbolist bliss of a previous one . . . In meticulously crafted verse and prose poems, The Little Door Slides Back offers the reader glimpses of a shadow world, seen by a visionary who has a clear strategy for depicting them." --*Ruth Andrews, Rain Taxi

"A 120-page spell . . . This is a beautiful work whose accuracy edges on the uncanny. Within, among, and around it all is presence, an almost hallucinogenic immediacy in which everything is seen and is in turn seeing." --Cole Swenson, American Letters & Commentary

"Clark integrates fin-de-siècle richness, hallucinatory vision, and a gothicism extracted from the bleak cul-de-sacs of postmodern life . . . constructing a flaneur who is both terrified and bemused by the world he enters as 'the little door slides back.'"--John Yau, Boston Review

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Blow-notes
Bludgeon Your Fancies
Clistheret
Daim-coqs
Demonologue (1)
Demonologue (2)
Demonologue (3)
Drinking Beach
The Foily Inch
Funeste
Gauche Mare
The Ghost Has No Home (1)
The Ghost Has No Home (2)
Glosstr Lead
The Grass
If I Don't Return
Invaginatioons
La Plus Belle Strophe De Robert Desnos
Lunar Tercets
Mal De Dusk
Malibatus
Marie-pristine
My Interior
Napoleonette
On The Iron Cot
Sea, Swallow Me
She Will Destroy You
Slagnotes
Some Information About Twenty-three Years Of Existence
St. Nemele
Tercets
Tethered Couplets (1)
Verse Abandoned During 'full On Night'
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

About the Author

Jeff Clark was born in Southern California in 1971. The author of three other books of poems--Music and Suicide, Arab Rab, and Sun on 6--he lives in Oakland.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 120 pages
• Publisher: Sun & Moon Press (March 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 155713314X
• ISBN-13: 978-1557133144
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,502,999 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing, June 20, 2006

By 

J from NY (New York) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Little Door Slides Back: Poems (Paperback)

While I'm not sure I'd put Jeff Clark up there with Robert Desnos (yet), I do see potential in his archaic, surreal, bizarre and mysterious work. Some will no doubt come away from "The Little Door Slides Back" with the feeling of being put on, or have little patience with what the guy is trying to say. Or they may suspect he is trying to say nothing at all; for my part, I see substance here. There are moments where you are absolutely transfixed to the page and he keeps you there in an anarchic headlock. (The "green bits of razor blade in her teeth" line did not leave my mind for days). Reading this straight through without stopping creates a strange deja vu *reminiscent* of Mallarme. I would recommend this to anyone with patience, and anyone interested in revitalizing the bloodless world of contemporary poetry in the US, peopled with Ted Koosers and Billy Collinses running around pretending to matter. Give this poet a chance.

3 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ultimately Sporty, December 2, 1999

By 

Jim Grinder (Sparks, Nevada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Little Door Slides Back (New American Poetry) (Paperback)

In a challenging but effortless explosion, Captain Jeffrey Clark marches forth into a land of BBQ sauce and happy games. Reading this large handful of goodness makes me want to run, hide, and take a long nap with a little baby puppy. Cuddling is fun, especially when it is cold outside, and you have a comfy pooch to bring back dreaded memories. Master Clark does an excellent job of excelling... case in point with the piece entitled "Happy Dogs and Sad Possums". I could read this over and over and over. Once.

1 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice piece of post-language, language-centered work, July 31, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Little Door Slides Back (New American Poetry) (Paperback)

In one of the more interesting debut appearances of late, Jeff Clark manages rather nicely a homage to Desnos and Trakl,among others, in what can perhaps only be described as a delicious and playful end-of-the-century treat. Jeff Clark shows us here that America's love affair with surrealism and symbolism is far from dead; it is an ongoing project of improvement. The short prose pieces are especially imaginative (and remeniscently Baudelairean) in nature. All the more surprising and remarkable if one believes the recent APR(American Poetry Review) writeup of Jeff Clark as an FBI agent. It's good to see that the FBI is continuing its tradition of recruiting the brightest and the best.