Clay

by David Groff

Book by Groff, David

Genres: Poetry

90 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

David Groff is an American poet, writer, and independent editor.

Groff graduated from the University of Iowa, with an MFA, and MA. He has taught at University of Iowa, Rutgers University, and NYU, and at William Paterson University.

For the last eleven years, he has worked with literary and popular novelists, memoirists, journalists, and scientists whose books have been published by Atria, Bantam, HarperCollins, Hyperion, Little Brown, Miramax, Putnam, St. Martin's, Wiley, and other publishers. For twelve years he was an editor at Crown Publishing.

Groff's work was published in American Poetry Review, Bloom, Chicago Review, Christopher Street, Confrontation, The Georgia Review, The Iowa Review, Men on Men 2, Men on Men 2000, Missouri Review, New York, North American Review, Northwest Review, Out, Poetry, Poetry Daily, Poetry Northwest, Poz, Prairie Schooner, QW, Self, 7 Days, 7 Carmine, and Wigwag.

Groff was awarded the Louise Bogan Award by the Lambda Literary Foundation in 2012 for his work, Clay.

He is currently an editor under the agency of Rob Weisbach Creative Management.

Reviews

[Terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the opening poem, “Clay’s Flies,” Groff draws us into a Whitman-like, although wary, celebration of the flesh, where the poet’s sextant guides us through “the capes and beachheads” of Clay’s body, while his keen ears are always on alert to “the flies. Those jaded undertakers . . . aching to make their mark amid the marks we make.” In poem after poem, the we witness a gorgeous language of extravagance and pathos, without the ornamental or pathetic. By the time we reach Clay’s “Epithalamion,” the poet has so “marr[ied] his life with death,” that when “the wind blow[s] [them] apart,” Groff proclaims that what is left behind is “an ocean.” What he doesn’t tell us is that the ocean left in Clay’s wake is so voluminous and so full of wonder that we will want to return to it again and again to be reborn in its depths.

[Kaylin (The Re-Read Queen) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I initally purchased this several semesters ago, for an English course I was taking to fill a gap in my credits. I found it again today, while unpacking once again. For the first time, I sat down and read all 90 pages of this in less then an hour. Then I had to re-read a few places because I'd loved them so much.

A beautiful and intimate collection of poems, both tragic and hopeful. It's always hard for me to review poetry, because I don't really know what to say. But I adored the wording in this, and Groff seemed to pour emotion into every page.

[B.L. Aldrich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poets, you're just not fair. Most of the poems in this collection are tightly focused on the speaker's intimate relationships, and the voice in the work drew me in and made me feel as if I knew the people it described. The poetry got under my skin, but in a pleasant fashion. Like I was making a friend. Again. In a handful of words, poetry conveys what it requires me thousands of words to express. When it's as good as this, I always come away awed.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some really fine poetry in this collection. Groff's play of words is as interesting as his book-long elegy on maternal and erotic (separate, of course) love. I was more fond of sections 1 and 3.