Necessary Distance: Essays and Criticism

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 compromised its own artistic nature," to his consumate statement on the concept of rhythm in African -American poetry, *Necessary Distance is a sweeping tour of new ground in literature and poetics.* **Clarence Major** is the author of nine novels, nine books of poetry, and many nonfiction works and was a 1999 finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry for *Configurations. Major teaches at the University of California in Davis. He has written for the *New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Essence*, and dozens of other periodicals.*