Necessary Distance:
Essays and Criticism

CLARENCE MAJOR

"Clarence Major has a remarkable mind and the talent to match." -Toni Morrison

"Like the finest blues, Clarence Major is, by turns, hypnotic, exotic, and healthily erotic." -Al Young

Bringing together critical essays, articles, and reviews by 1999 National Book Award for Poetry finalist, this landmark collection is an impressive look back - and forward - by one of our most visionary authors. From essays on the craft of writing, to critiques of contemporary and classic African-American authors and their work, to observations on the quirkiness of the writing and publishing life, Necessary Distance is a compendium of the best nonfiction prose by an important figure in contemporary American letters.

This collection is a portrait of the artist’s rise to prominence in American letters. "A writer is usually a person who has to learn how to keep his ego-like his virginity-and lose it at the same time. In other words, he becomes a kind of twin of himself. He remains that self-centered infant while transcending him to become the observer of his experience and, by extension, the observer of a wide range of experience within his cultural domain." From his apt observations on cultural doubleness, to his redefinition of a political poetry that is "organic in its ideas, . . . that in no way compromises its own artistic nature," to his consummate statement on the concept of rhythm in African American poetry, Necessary Distance is a sweeping tour of new ground in literature and poetics.

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