Tom Clark grew up in Chicago. He graduated in 1963 from the University of Michigan and did postgraduate studies in England at the Universities of Cambridge and Essex. In the 1960s he began editing poetry publications small and large, from the free-radical Once series of mimeographed books to The Paris Review (serving as poetry editor from 1963 to 1973). Over the years he has worked variously as a teacher, writer, critic, and artist.
