Clayfeld Holds On - by Robert Pack (Paperback)

About the Book

In this new collection, Robert Pack reprises Clayfeld, a character he created in 1987, who is the book's protagonist as well as Pack's doppelgAnger and alternate self, the self that both enacts the life that Pack has lived through his dramatic exchanges with Clayfeld, as well as the life Pack "might" have lived, given their shared proclivities and appetites. Written in short, rhythmic lines, the lyrical narrative recounts Clayfeld's and Pack's formative memories, anecdotes, and episodes involving parents, family, and friends, all against a backdrop of the natural world, the lakes, mountains, birds, and wild animals that have always been a fundamental part of Pack's writings. In colloquial and lucid language, the poems explore a number of concepts and beliefs--such as loyalty, generosity, commitment, and an awareness of the cosmos--as Pack reminds us of the mysteries and complexities of human awareness and unrelenting human desire. Above all, the persona Clayfeld loves puns and jokes, humor and music; these, he maintains, are humanity's greatest gifts in facing contingency and loss, accepting the body's humbling frailties, and enduring the inevitable sorrows of mortality. Together, Pack and his shadow-self enjoy what can be celebrated in the sweep of passing time, all the while acknowledging, as Clayfeld does, that he, perhaps, has "too many ironies in the fire."

Book Synopsis

from "Clayfeld's Farewell Epistle to Bob Pack"

Beneath this mellow harvest moon,
I can still picture you-a boy content
just fishing with his father from a ledge
above a foaming stream. The flailing trout
you caught is packed in gleaming ice;
the pink stripe all along its side
is smeared across black shiny dots
that seem to shine with their own light.
I'm sure that you can picture me
with equal vividness, and though we're not
identical, there is a sense
in which I am inventing you
as much as you're inventing me.

In Clayfeld Holds On, Robert Pack offers his readers a comprehensive portrait of his longtime protagonist Clayfeld, who is also Pack's doppelgänger, his alternate self, enacting both the life that the poet has lived and the life he might have lived, given his proclivities and appetites. Poet and protagonist, taken together, are self and consciousness of self, the historical self and the embellished story of that literal self.
Written with a masterly ear for rhythm, and interweaving narrative and lyrical passages, the poems recount Clayfeld's formative memories while exploring concepts such as loyalty, generosity, commitment, as well as cosmic phenomena such as the big bang theory and black holes. Through all of this, Pack attempts to find purpose and meaning in an indifferent universe, and to explore the labyrinth of his own proliferating identity.

Review Quotes

"Clayfeld Holds On is a superb volume of late poems by Robert Pack, a singular voice in American poetry. Clayfeld is Pack's alter-ego, raging against the dying of the light, walking down paths retaken with renewed gusto. The poet's subtle cadences draw the reader forward through narratives of recovery toward self-discoveries that are world-discoveries as well. Clayfeld Holds On is a satisfying and resonant collection, a vision of reality that is gripping and profound."-- "Jay Parini, author of The Art of Subtraction: New and Selected Poems"

"In his stunning, brilliant new collection, Clayfeld Holds On, the octogenarian Robert Pack revisits the lamp-lit chambers of his alter ego, Clayfeld (Old Adam) some thirty years on. These poems are hard-won, informed with a rare wit, compendium of knowledge, and deep intelligence, by turns heartbreaking, full of wisdom and a Swiftian sense of the folly of human endeavor, and funny as hell. And then there are ghosts that recline at the table of Pack's symposium--Freud, Job, Shakespeare, Mozart, Frost and Stevens among them--nudging him on to tell one more story, while there is still time."-- "Paul Mariani, author of Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Life"

"Robert Pack is one of the most important poets of our epoch. In a career that exceeds fifty years he has explored his life and the lives of people in our society with unparalleled intelligence and beauty. His new book Clayfeld Holds On is remarkable for its exuberance, profundity, and sheer joy. He is one of the poets by whom our culture will be known in times to come."-- "Erica Jong"

"Robert Pack writes in a compassionate voice, full of humor and sorrow for all the losses, and yet always ready to take on more."-- "Julia Alvarez, author of How the García Girls Lost Their Accents"

"There are great pleasures in reading Robert Pack's Clayfeld Holds On. Pack's new collection of poems is a culminating achievement by this deeply serious and at the same time irrepressibly playful writer."-- "John Elder, author of Reading the Mountains of Home"

About the Author

Robert Pack is the Abernethy Professor of Literature and Creative Writing Emeritus at Middlebury College and Distinguished Senior Professor Emeritus of Humanities in the Honors College of the University of Montana, Missoula. He is the author of five prose works and nineteen previous books of poems, most recently Laughter before Sleep, also available from the University of Chicago Press.