ABSTRACT
Silence and stillness are ideas that inform form and subject matter in the work of contemporary Scottish landscape poet Thomas A. Clark. Looking in particular at several small publications – postcards, folded cards and booklets – published by Moschatel Press, a mainly self-publishing press that Clark started with his artist wife, Laurie Clark, in 1973 it is argued that the material and formal-aesthetic limitations of small press publishing are inseparable from the ethical and ideological concerns evident from the poems. Drawing extensively on Clark’s own account of his poetic practice – published interviews, statements on poetics and personal correspondence – the author argues for the underlying continuity of Clark’s writing concerns over several decades.
