Poet David Clewell: King of American Arcana

David Clewell was my first real writing teacher, back at Webster University in St. Louis 25 years ago. He’s a working poet and taught me to love William Carlos Williams and poetry for life in one fell reading of “To a Poor Old Woman.”  Isn’t it reassuring that Professor Clewell is still teaching at Webster University and passing on a real-life passion for poetry. He’s a wonderful poet in his own right, but enough of what I think. Here’s what Billy Collins thinks: “David Clewell is an exuberant, inexhaustible poet and an insider on such diverse American arcana as forgotten Hollywood actors, flying saucers, CIA shenanigans, comic books, cereal favors, beatnik kitsch, and jazz. His unstoppable narrative energy and his multi-layered curiosity are almost enough to drive this poet out to the far right side of the page. His elegy for a federal agent who jumped out a window on LSD is alone worth the price of this collection of Clewell at his best, his most Clewellian.”—Billy Collins, Poet Laureate of the United States

Learn more about David Clewell.

Read one of his great poems here.