Product Description
An associate justice on the renowned Warren Court whose landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education overturned racial segregation in schools and other public facilities, Tom C. Clark was a crusader for justice throughout his long legal career. Among many tributes Clark received, Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger opined that "no man in the past thirty years has contributed more to the improvement of justice than Tom Clark."Supreme Court Justice Tom C. Clark is the first biography of this important American jurist. Written by his daughter, Mimi Clark Gronlund, and based on interviews with many of Clark's judicial associates, friends, and family, as well as archival research, it offers a well-rounded portrait of a lawyer and judge who dealt with issues that remain in contention today--civil rights, the rights of the accused, school prayer, and censorship/pornography, among them. Gronlund explores the factors in her father's upbringing and education that helped form his judicial philosophy, then describes how that philosophy shaped his decisions on key issues and cases, including the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, the investigation of war fraud, the Truman administration's loyalty program (an anti-communist effort), the Brown decision, Mapp v. Ohio (protections against unreasonable search and seizure), and Abington v. Schempp (which overturned a state law that required reading from the Bible each day in public schools). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Supreme Court Justice Tom C. Clark
Excellent, well written biography.The book traces some important events in recent history, such as the legal fight to halt segregation, and the events that led up to the removal of ethnic Japanese from the west coast.Outstanding and highly recommended.

At last a Justice Tom Clark biography
As I have preached many times on Amazon, judicial biographies are one of the single best ways to understand how and why the Supreme Court makes its decisions.The only problem is that while some Justices (e.g., Holmes, Brandeis, John and Thurgood Marshall) have multiple biographies, many less prominent Justices have not yet been the subject of one.Since the Court engages in 9-person decision-making, part of the story is not being covered as well as it might.A prime example of this phenomenon is Justice Tom C. Clark (1899-1977; on the Court between 1949 and 1967). This solid study, by his daughter, corrects this deficiency.While I had some concern that a biography written by a "loving daughter" (as the author characterizes herself) might be dedicated to portraying its subject in an heroic light, in fact the book is quite balanced.It is also much needed: even though I have been studying judicial biography (including teaching a course in it) since 1967, I knew relatively little about Clark's rich career in the Department of Justice, on the Court, and during a busy "retirement." Yet he served on both the Truman and Warren Courts at crucial periods of our judicial history.

The author states at the outset that she is not writing a comprehensive analysis of the Justice.Basically, this means that we don't get extensive discussions of Clark's key decisions and his role as a dissenter.But we do receive a pretty good survey of some of his key areas of impact while on the Court; after all, this is not a text on con law but a judicial biography.Brother Ramsay Clark has contributed an excellent "Forward" which nicely summarizes the book's findings in a few pages.Part I, covering 1899-1936, traces Clark's youth, education and early private law practice in Texas.Part II covers his Department of Justice years between 1937-1949, including eventually becoming Truman's Attorney General.I spent 15 years at DOJ and I can tell you the depth of Clark's departmental career is probably greater than any other Attorney General I can recall: Antitrust Division; Japanese relocation during the second war; the War Frauds Unit; Assistant A.G. in charge of the Criminal Division; arguing to the Court in three cases; and finally AG itself. A primary interest in civil rights emerges, including filing an amicus brief in a case challenging restrictive covenants. But Clark during the late 1940's got involved in wiretap authorizations, employee loyalty programs, creation of the infamous "Attorney General's Life of Subversive Organizations," and several of the big Smith Act cases, including Judith Coplon, Dennis and Bentley.

Part Three covers the Court years.Clark is involved in lots of important matters, including the Steel Seizure Case; the early graduate education cases leading to the Brown decision; important subversion and loyalty oath cases (he did have "conservative views of national security"); the "Red Monday" decisions; and Warren Court grappling with criminal justice, obscenity and religion in schools. The author does a very nice job on discussing Clark's interaction with other Court members, including Fred Vinson, Brennan and Felix Frankfurter.The final section deals with Clark's retirement years when he was deeply involved in the Federal Judicial Center, serving on U.S. district courts, reforming legal ethics, and enhancing the training opportunities for state judges.

The author has done a solid job of research (as evidenced in her bibliography) including family material and interviews. So there is important biographical material out there, yet Clark remained until this book almost unknown today. Why?A couple of explanations suggest themselves. Clark was always seen as not particularly dynamic (like Black and Douglas) or a great legal scholar (like Harlan).He also was seen as being overwhelmingly conservative, though I think the author rightly paints a much more textured picture. When I studied the Court in the late 1960's and early 1970's particularly, most Court scholarship was written by liberal, activist scholars and Clark just did not fit the bill enough for them and consequently he did not attract much scholarly attention.While this book does not give us a complete analysis of Clark and his contributions to constitutional law, it does perform a heroic service in affording us an intimate and thorough introduction to Clark, the forces that shaped him, his ideas, and his professional activities.In short, it serves (along with some law review articles) as a foundation for hopefully the more comprehensive studies that will emerge of this most interesting judicial figure. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Tom Clark does it again
This selection of relaxed but focused poems takes the reader by surprise.One expects the same observations, but that perception is turned around.the reader is puzzled for a few moments, and then sees the artistry of the poet and the originality. There's no one like Tom Clark. ... Read more

Product Description
Horror Classics is the tenth volume, and the first multi-author anthology in the Graphic Classics series. It features "Some Words with a Mummy", a comedy by Edgar Allan Poe, W.W. Jacobs' famed "The Monkey's Paw", and one of H.P. Lovecraft's best, "The Thing on the Doorstep", adapted by Michael Manning. Also "Professor Jonkin's Cannibal Plant" by Onsmith Jeremi and Clark Ashton Smith's "The Beast of Averoigne", adapted by Rod Lott and Richard Jenkins. Plus seven more horrifying stories and features. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

black and white
not a very good comic. All in black and white and not much diolog. might as well read the book.

Could Have Been Better
Well, I read Eureka Productions' Graphic Classics: Edgar Allan Poe (Graphic Classics (Graphic Novels)), and I have to admit it - I was consequently a little disappointed in this sequel volume. While the stories in this volume were uniformly interesting (more or less), I didn't feel the artwork was up to same level as the Poe volume. (A notable exception: Michael Manning's excellent adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's "The Thing On The Doorstep". I'll definitely keep an eye out for his (Manning's) work in the future.) Probably worth a look if you're a fan of any of the original writers, but I wouldn't go out of my way to read this one unless you're a complete horror comics nut.

Great stories and wonderful illustration work
This fun little graphic novel is a collection of some twelve short stories and poems that were all written by the greats of modern horror literature - H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Saki (pen name of Hector Hugh Munro), Jack London, and others. Just as heterogeneous as the authors are the illustrators. Each of the stories was illustrated by a different artist, who drew the story as he or she saw fit, each different from the others and each excellent.

Overall, I thought that this was an excellent book, with great stories and wonderful illustration work. I think that my favorites were Lovecraft's The Thing on the Doorstep, W.W. Jacobs' Monkey's Paw, and Clark Ashton Smith's The Beast of Averoigne, with Bret Harte's Selina Sedilia being too funny to miss. Yep, this is a great book, one that my fourteen-year-old daughter and I both enjoyed and both highly recommend!

Mummies, Murder and Monkey's Paws
Horror has done well for the modern incarnation of the Graphic Classics, whose series has seen such luminaries as Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe and HP Lovecraft brought to life by some extremely talented cartoonists. Whether it is the short-story nature, or the ready-made visually splendid imagery, there is something in the classic horror tales thats makes them well suited to the Graphic Classics treatment.Here, in the 10th volume, they have wisely continued this tradition, and assembled an anthology of classic horror stories to chill and delight.

"Horror Classics" brings together 12 authors, some of which, like HP Lovecraft , Jack London and Ambrose Bierce, have been previously honored with their own Graphic Classics collections. Others, like Clark Ashton Smith and Honre de Balzac, appear for the first time.All of the stories are well-chosen, and the artists's styles are well-matched.

This collection contains:

"The Mummy" - Ambrose Bierce - A short and witty poem, with a sharp illustration to match it.

"The Thing at the Doorstep" - HP Lovecraft - A brilliant take on one of my favorite Lovecraft stories.The artist manages to capture the "Innsmouth look" perfectly, and uses the author's original text combined with illustrations to great effect."glub..glub...glub-glub..."You know what I mean.

"Some Words with a Mummy" - Edgar Allan Poe - A clever and light adaptation of a resurrected mummy bantering with a few scientists over which has the superior society.

"In a Far Off World" - Oliver Schreiner - An excellent, melancholy tale.One I have never read before, but am glad to be introduced to.

"The Thing at Ghent" - Honre de Balzac - Entirely dialog free, I am at a bit of a loss as to the actual story.Unfortunately, it is not such a familiar tale as to be able to divine the story from illustrations alone.The only disappointment in the lot.

"The Monkey's Paw" - WW Jacobs - Any fan of "The Simpsons" will recognize this one, although they may have never seen the original.The artist JW Pierard maintains the full weight of the original cautionary tale.Be careful what you wish for, and don't mess with unfamiliar magiks.

"The Open Window" - Saki - Another familiar tale, one that I have heard told but never knew the origin of.A clever almost-ghost story, well adapted in a simple Victorian style.

"A Day Dream" - Fitz-James O-Brien - Cartoonish musings on murder, and the high class going slumming in the Five Points.

"Keesh Son of Keesh" - Jack London - A dark and powerful tale of barbarian culture and blood-rights amongst the Native American tribes.Ryan Inzana's heavy woodblock illustrations perfectly compliment this heavy story.

"Professor Jonkin's Cannibal Plant" - Howard R. Garis - "Feed me, Seymour!" Another comedic adaptation, featuring a foolish professor and his frightening child.

"The Beast of Averoigne" - Clark Ashton Smith - A contemporary of Lovecraft, this tale of a wild comet, a haunted abbey, and the Ring of Eibon, is adapted with appropriate style.

"Selina Sedilia" - Bret Harte - A humorous look at love ever-after between two base villains.And of course, there is only one way to achieve love "ever-after."

Each story is skillfully rendered into comic book format
Horror Classics is a graphic novel anthology that brings to vivid life those great tales of terror by Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and others. Each individual story is skillfully rendered into comic book format by a different artist, who uses black-and-white imagery to perfectly capture moments of terror. An engrossing introduction to the classics of horror for those new to the literary experience, and an exciting fresh take on great stories for those who have read them a hundred times before.
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Product Description
Concise guide to an exciting new technology that is bringing SANs into the mainstream of networking. An essential reference outlines how to meet the growing data storage needs of today's marketplace. Softcover. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Good resource on IP storage
IP SANs is still a good reference on IP storage protocols and applications. The description of iSCSI and other protocols is still current, although evidently this book was written before final standardization by the IETF.This book is primarily about IP SANs, not Fibre Channel.For more current information on Fibre Channel technology, I found Clark's Designing Storage Area Networks Second Edition to be a useful and objective reference.

Needs an update & objectivity
First off, Tom Clark's "Designing Storage Area Networks" is one of my favorite FC books.Its thorough and gives you a solid understanding of FC.Even with all the recent updates in FC, its still a good reference book.

But this book is already out of date.Most of the comparisons made between FC and IP are inaccurate (no mention of 2 Gb FC, necessity of IP HBAs) or avoid serious corporate considerations like technology availability, maturity, and cost.I hate to say it, but large portions of this book read like a product brochure (Mr. Clark is Director of Tech Marketing for Nishan Systems and he plugs them & iFCP often).If you're looking to understand IP SANs and where they will fit in your environment, This isn't it.An update may help, but it would probably be better if this book got to the brass tacks of IP SANs and avoided FC comparisons.One last point: backups aren't low priority (streaming media doesn't like intermittent data flow & data protection is high priority).

Very good for engineers!
Clear explanation about the RAID, SCSI, FC and IP relations. Very good book. I found it very helpful.

A good vendor-neutral, technology-neutral book
While it purports to be about iSCSI, the book does such a good job of explaining the history of the technologies that lead up to iSCSI (SANs, Fibre Channel, etc.) that I feel confident recommending the book to people that are network geeks that want to learn what all this SAN and Fiber Channel stuff is about, and also want to learn about all this new iSCSI, iFCP and FCIP too.

It doesn't go into vendor-specific information, it is _not_ a book about how to run a SAN or how to pick vendors.It is about the technology in general, how it works, what it does, and what it can't do.

Someone that deals with SANs all day might read it and say, "Yeah, but I know all that already.I want to know what products work with what equipment, etc."People just getting involved in the technology, on the other hand, really need this book.

I highly recommend it.

Worth a read!
This is a really good book on the new area of Storage Area Networking using IP network technology.It starts with a background on SAN and Fibre Channel (FC), then gets into why IP SAN products are coming onto the market, and how they compare to the older FC products.It also covers SCSI, and has several chapters on IP, UDP and TCP, including how they apply to SANs. A large part of the book is devoted to the various protocols and approaches being used to support SANs over IP, including Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP), Internet Fibre Channel Protocol (iFCP), Metro Fibre Channel Protocol (mFCP), and Internet SCSI (iSCSI).There are also chapters on security and QoS.

This book could be used by either a "storage head" or a "net head", as it has chapters to bring the reader up to speed in both storage and networking technology.Best of all, it is written in a very accessible, readable style that entirely avoids the dry textbook style some tech authors fall into.While the intro claims the book was written for IT personnel in various capacities, it would also be useful to development engineers and marketing types trying to come up to speed on the parts of IP SANs they are not familiar with.

Highly recommended. ... Read more

Product Description
This important volume features contributions by top virtual school practitioners and experts in the field who talk about what virtual schools can do to plan for success. If you are interested in the details of launching virtual learning options for your school, district, region, or state, you likely have more questions than answers. Where do I begin? What kind of personnel will I need? What providers and resources are available to me? How do I hire and train teachers? What are the costs involved? This authoritative volume will answer these questions and many more. Providing an overview of virtual schooling and e-learning, along with detailed case studies and issues chapters, this essential volume provides practical guidance and a brief “plan for success” roadmap for local schools interested in starting a virtual learning program. ... Read more

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Offers practical guidelines for implementing and utilizing SANs to solve the real-world needs of business networks.Introduces Fibre Channel SAN technology and demonstrates exactly how it can be used to address specific application challenges. Softcover. DLC: Computer networks. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

good book, writing style too boring however
good book, writing style too boring however.
coverage of the topic is good.
deatils are good.
BUT, it is written like tech. paper (not that boring, you
get the idea).
worth reading, for sure.

Coulda been betta
As a career information technology manager and consultant, currently working in storage area network deployments, I found the book to meet some of my expectations, but miss the boat on others.

A very user-friendly and surprisingly detailed (at times) overview of storage area networking.The basics of the fiber channel protocol and network elements were covered, providing the reader with a firm, yet easy-to-digest foundation in SAN.Other applications, such as disaster recovery, fault tolerance, requirements gathering and analysis, clustering, and backups were also discussed.The book definitely packed a lot of information in a very small space (~170 pages of text).

The greatest weakness of the version that I read (4th printing in 1999), presumably the latest available, was that it focused heavily on arbitrated loop design, and not so much on next generation switch fabrics.The complex arbitrated loop applications that it used as examples have been made obsolete by much simpler, feature-rich fabric switched solutions.And ultra-scalable (cascaded switched fabric) networks were almost entirely ignored.An update on this book is desperately needed, or else it runs the risk of being a history text more than the introductory and quick-reference manual it was intended to be.

Definitely worth the money if you are a beginner needing an overview or if you can get a used copy.

Excellent Primer for SANS
This book is a "must have" for anyone contemplating a SAN Solution.

Wow!Deserves an Excellence in Technical Writing Award
What a pleasure to read a book that is simultaneously technically comprehensive but concise and a breeze to read because of its clarity in writing and diagrammatic support.

Excellent resource on SAN/Fibre-Channel, and network disk storage issues generally.

What a great primer
I found this book a great primer for anyone planning on building a SAN.Great detail went into educating the reader about the different topologies and terms.The only downfall was a lack of specific details about parts/vendors.This book provides an unbaised educational tour of SANs. ... Read more

Product Description
All the components of the Jack Kerouac legend are here: the excesses of alcohol and drugs; the soul searching; the characters--Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and Lucien Carr, John Clellon Holmes and William Burroughs, Jack's mother, Gabrielle, and the other women in Kerouac's life. There is also a record of the travels that became the basis for On the Road and Visions of Cody, the death-shrouded childhood that became Mexico City Blues and Tristessa, and the stupor of fame that weighed on him as he tried to articulate his torments in Big Sur. This edition is newly revised with a new introduction by the author. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Concise, Factual, and non-Hagiographic.
I was looking for a biography of Jack Kerouac and the one thing I wanted to avoid was a fan's love letter. I wanted something as objective as possible which would illuminate the writer as a man rather than a hero, and that is exactly what I found in Tom Clark's text. It's quite concise with its narrative running just over 200 pages. Despite its brevity, the book managed to cover Kerouac's shortened life in a most satisfactory fashion. I also enjoyed the pictures which artfully adorn the chapters. The one thing that really stands out is the way in which he used drugs to self-medicate. He said that alcoholism was a happy disease but it certainly wasn't for him. Depression appeared to be an even more prominent feature of his personality than graphomania. I found the last forty pages of the tale very sad indeed. One longs to grab him by his flannel shirt and inject him with antabuse. All of this is wasted emotion, however. The man who is bent on killing himself can never be deterred from his goal. This is a skillful portrait of a legend as a human being.

He was dedicated . . .
One of the first things that you come to learn about Jack Kerouac, aside from geographics, is how much he loved to write. The man truly was relentless and driven. He carried a typewriter in his suitcase and beingout of work was just an excuse or a good moment to write. I read this bookand it saddened me to no end because Jack inspired and even pushed many tobecome writers, but didn't have the luxury of long life to see his ownfruits. William S. Burroughs accredits Jack for his whole literary career.

Clark describes Kerouac in terms that you may not have ever thought ofhim in. He was a deeply religious person due to his mother, he was kind andgentle and, almost fatherly to his friends. He did love to drink and gethigh, like his contemporaries, but you really feel that he was asmis-guided by his flock as much as he tried to steer them. They truly werehis extended family. This is the only Clark piece that I've read, and itwas well worth the time and money spent.

I gave this book four starsbecause Clark seems to describe Kerouac as two people at all times. Andmaybe the question of that itself should've been examined further. I willrecommend this book to others for sure. This book seems to encapsulate theKerouac very well (for all his faults). ... Read more

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The human brain is a convoluted bundle of nerve cells: a hub from which millions of nerve impulses are transmitted, and to which yet more millions of impulses are sent. But how can this mass of cells control our moods, our behaviours, our addictions? And what happens if this mass of cells degenerates, and no longer functions as it should? The Human Brain and its Disorders offers an engaging and accessible introduction to the human brain and the human nervous system, what happens when normal neural function is lost, and how resulting disorders can be treated. Written specifically for the non-specialist by experts in each sub-discipline, the book uses extensive examples and real-life case studies to show how the theory applies in reality. Opening with an overview of key neurobiological concepts, the book goes on to explore conditions such as epilepsy, Alzheimer's disease, and multiple sclerosis, before examining psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia, mood disorders, and addiction.With extensive learning features throughout each chapter, and an Online Resource Centre to support its use as a teaching text, The Human Brain and its Disorders is the ideal resource for any student wishing to develop a working understanding of how the brain works, and the consequences of brain malfunction. Online Resource Centre: For registered adopters of the text: - Figures from the book available to download, to facilitate lecture preparation - Multiple-choice question test bank, to support formative or summative assessment. ... Read more

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Introduces the life and times of the only Texan to have served as a justice of the United States Supreme Court. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

True History Told Well
Tom Clark got his BA degree in two years and his law degree in one year. Then he went on to become the Attorney General and after that an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. This gem of a book covers highlights fromClark's public career and in doing so nicely reviews the recent history ofthe Supreme Court. Most of us vaguely realize that real power these dayshas left the congress, the people, and the executive branch to reside inthe bureaucracy and the courts and that important political questions thatcan't be resolved, more or less, eventually end up in the hands of thecourts. If you don't remember Mapp v. Ohio, or Miranda v. Arizona, or BrownI&II v. Topeka, or if you can't explain what the Establishment Clauseis, then you might profit from reading this book and discover how and whyour legal system came to defend liberty with as much rigor and absolutefairness as it defends life. The author's style is simple and direct butcolored by a youthful enthusiasm because, after all, the idea, much of theresearch, and the writing occurred while the author was still a high schoolstudent at Tom C. Clark High School in San Antonio. Great books like thisone, produced at an early age, are no accident and indicate greater booksto come. ... Read more

Product Description
Charles Olson (1910-1970) was a mass of contradictions - at once egalitarian and elitist, as desperate for the love of a devoted woman as he was haunted by homosexual urges, a lapsed Catholic who eventually drifted into Islamic mysticism and Sumerian studies. In this provocative biography of a poet both feared and revered, Tom Clark shows how these conflicts troubled Olson's life even as it fueled his art. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

thoroughly readable portrait of an iconoclast
and by iconoclast its not possible to sugarcoat the very real personal destruction that olson wrought on everyone around him, though he was one of the most brilliant exponents of some of the very best strains of modernist poetry. as someone who has studied, admired, and been engaged with olson over the last two years, and his prophetic calls for "an earth of value", and "proprieception", among many other ideas that went way beyond theinventions and drug induced nihilism of the beats, clark's biography gave an insight in to the man's extremely complex relationship with everyone around him, and i mean everyone.yes olson was exploding off the page with ideas, but his attempts to live the ideas fell far short of his high flown naturalistic bent, and some of his behavior, both pre and post amphetamines, was frankly incredible; particularly his 5 years at black mountain, which although may have been doomed from the start, (an experimental college in mccarthyist america) it was still a testing ground for olson's "polis has eyes" that may have changed a lot in the postsecondary educ. system.a great insight in to a man that was brilliant, a visionary, and an inventor, but also apetty, misogynistic, brute of a man that sacrificed many people to the great altar of ideas. i've never read anything else by clark, but he seems to have a pretty thorough approach to biography that tells a story in a straightforward narrative with plenty of documentary evidence; also, having picked up the first edition in a used book store, the comments of robert duncan, haas, creely, and edward dorn on the back flap give credence the portrait that clark paints.highly recommended to anyone wanting to understand the man who "invented" postmodernism.

Choppy Life
Found the book to lead me on great imaginings.Certainly not a prettyportrait of the artist, but within a tight 352 pages a sound introductionto his work and psychic torment which shaped it.The book led me intodeeper investigations and further imaginings which is part of what a decentbiography should do.

A tour de force which has little to do with Olson or his art
The author belies a hostility towards his subject early on in the book by referring to him as "Charlie" as though he was the cop on "Bad Boys" who had caught the guy in the video who had obviouslydone something which gave him the right to speak condescendingly to him. In Clark's own mind Olson has become an unworthy father who he has to beatdown.Wierd !Totally misses the point of Olson's art which is that eachpage is different and a unique attempt at truth. Shows too how theThruway West (oh Gunslinger) has obliterated belief in an actual earth ofvalue. Which Olson's actual text does manage to keep alive. ... Read more

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Traces the lives, careers, and achievements of the two men who, under instructions from President Jefferson, explored the American Northwest and the lands of the Louisiana Purchase. ... Read more

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Edward Dorn (1929–1999) was a poet whose strength rested on his ability to portray through language the lives and the land he knew best. In more than 30 books of poetry, Dorn’s sympathies were always with the working class and the dispossessed. Poet Robert Duncan describes Dorn’s most acclaimed work, Gunslinger, as “an American Canterbury Tales.” In this biography, Tom Clark, the poet’s close friend and spiritual companion, brings to life a man and a body of work that make up an iconic American tale. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Remarkable and Serious Fare for a great american poet...
Any serious person would love Ed Dorn, and I've been an admirer of his through poetry readings (at UCSD, when I was a student there), into earlier years when he was at Black Mountain College (when I wasn't born), and through the great works: Slinger, the North Atlantic Turbine, the Collected Works, and all the editions in between and later. I was so saddened when I learned he'd died; I wasn't so patched in that I heard about it right away, but the passing left a void.

Dorn wrote political poetry, but also great poetry; he avoided the fuzziness of the Beats while capturing their passion and engagement with life. He was a scholar -- especially of the American West -- and he made much of what he could do. This biography by Tom Clark is a completely solid one -- it catches the essentials, perhaps more strongly in the later years than in the early ones (thus the one-star deduction). Tom is an accomplished writer, essayist, biographer, and poet in his own right, and that mastery shows. But if you're interested in one of the great minds, and one suffused with a gentle (and at times not) skepticism about the West and its geography, you will find this of value. And then, please DO load up on Ed Dorn and his essays and poetry volumes. You will find that they do not pall, and that all you bring to them adds to their strength, and to yours.

Remarkable and Serious Fare for a great american poet...
Any serious person would love Ed Dorn, and I've been an admirer of his through poetry readings (at UCSD, when I was a student there), into earlier years when he was at Black Mountain College (when I wasn't born), and through the great works: Slinger, the North Atlantic Turbine, the Collected Works, and all the editions in between and later. I was so saddened when I learned he'd died; I wasn't so patched in that I heard about it right away, but the passing left a void.

Dorn wrote political poetry, but also great poetry; he avoided the fuzziness of the Beats while capturing their passion and engagement with life. He was a scholar -- especially of the American West -- and he made much of what he could do. This biography by Tom Clark is a completely solid one -- it catches the essentials, perhaps more strongly in the later years than in the early ones (thus the one-star deduction). Tom is an accomplished writer, essayist, biographer, and poet in his own right, and that mastery shows. But if you're interested in one of the great minds, and one suffused with a gentle (and at times not) skepticism about the West and its geography, you will find this of value. And then, please DO load up on Ed Dorn and his essays and poetry volumes. You will find that they do not pall, and that all you bring to them add to their strength, and to yours. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Read it and wake up!
This slim, hard-to-find polemic is an early source on the infamous and shadowy "Merwin Incident". Clark's primary source of information on the incident itself is the even harder to find"The Party, A Chronological Perspective on a Confrontation at a Buddhist Seminary", written by students in a Naropa class led by Ed Sanders.Clark is out for blood, and delivers in a relentlessly flippant, journalistic style. The more you know about the world Clark is circumscribing, the more quickly you spot errors and distortions, calculated to transmit Clark's disdain for not only Naropa and Vajradhatu (Trungpa's institutions) but the wider world of Tibetan Buddhism. Below, we will see also that Clark's work was calculated to create or exacerbate conflicts in the poetic community.Clark's work stands as a bracing antidote to the Trungpa community's propaganda machine, but Barry Miles' "Ginsberg: a Biography" may be more reliable and certainly appears to be more fair-minded, without shying from telling the story.

The incident took place in Snowmass, Colorado, at the Fall 1975 Seminary, a three month program intended for advanced, committed students of Trungpa. Poet W. S. Merwin and his girlfriend Dana Naone were allowed to join even though they did not have the established student-teacher relationship with Trungpa. This turned out to be a mistake, as the poet and his girlfriend brought with them an independent spirit not suitable for the environment. Two months in, Trungpa hosted a Halloween party, at which he showed up drunk and immediately got naked. Merwin and Naone retreated from the party to their room. Trungpa instructed his "Vajra Guard" to bring them back to the party, by force if necessary. Force was necessary. The Guard broke down the locked door to Merwin's room. Merwin smashed a bottle and used the broken end to fend them off, drawing blood, but ultimately the Guard captured their targets and brought them to the party. Trungpa threw sake in Merwin's face, racially insulted Naone, and demanded they remove their clothes. When they refused, he ordered his Guard to strip them. Naone asked the onlookers to help them or to call the police. Only one made a move in their defense, and got punched by Trungpa for his efforts. Trungpa then began punching the man stripping Naone for being too slow about it, so that man sped up by ripping off the remaining clothing. Then everyone else stripped and began to dance, and Merwin and Naone got back to their room.

That's the core story. The remaining 85 pages of the book describe Trungpa; his institutions, and their attempts to cover up and sanitize the incident; and other reports suggesting that the Merwin incident was not an exception, but rather a salient indicator of the nature of Trungpa's leadership.

There's a fifteen page interview with Allen Ginsberg, in which Ginsberg pathetically attempts to rationalize and excuse Trungpa's abuse.Other sources (including Miles) reveal that the Boulder Monthly removed Ginsberg's more respectful comments about Merwin and kept the less respectful ones.I don't know what Clark's motives were, but they weren't friendly.Keep this in mind as you read.

Appended letters from Ginsberg and from Anne Waldman (who cofounded, with Ginsberg, the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa) show considerable sophistication in their calculated coolness (Waldman) and sweet humility (Ginsberg), but their actions speak louder than words, and even their words do not go far enough, going nowhere near the concept of an authority figure like Trungpa bearing any responsibility for his actions.

Tough, smart
This book is one of the best books ever written on the contemporary poetry scene.It is smart, tough, and accurate.

Poetry abandoned its sense of reason, and in swept gangsters like Trungpa and Ron Padgett.Result: read all about it in Clark's book, if you can find a copy.

The same thing happened at Rajneeshpuram, and other hippy meccas.Sneaky finks calling themselves gurus swept into the vacuum left by the vacant minds of hippies, and the result was sheer terror.

What was that somebody said about eternal vigilance?I must have smoked too much pot.I can't remember.

Clark has a funny brutal sense of reality.I recommend all his books to anyone who wants to stay alive.He functions. While most of his generation of poets were just idiots swimming in swill, and happy to do so, Clark was a citizen that the founders of this republic would not have scorned.He is a man of principle, and God save the creeps that Clark chooses to ridicule.

terrific book
Wonderful, funny, and scary book about poetry, buddhism, and craziness. I read this years ago and want to re-read it again soon. ... Read more