The Art and Life of Clarence Major

Notes

Notes chapter 1. Breaking Boundaries: A Family History 1. Unpublished family tree, Clarence Major personal papers; e-mail, Clarence Major to author, 10 August 2006. 2. E-mail, Major to author, 10 August 2006. chapter 2. Becoming an Artist 1. See Bearden and Henderson, History of African-American Artists, 147–56. 2. This dynamic is evident, for example, in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), when Tea Cake beats Janie because he must demonstrate to the community his control. 3. See the History page at the College of Complexes: A Weekly Free Speech Forum website, accessed 18 February 2011 at http://collegeofcomplexes.homestead.com/ History.html, for the history of the “college.” 4. E-mail, Major to author, 7 January 2010. 5. S. Moore, Beerspit Night and Cursing, 170. 6. Ibid., 173–74. 7. Ibid., 177. chapter 3. Making It in New York 1. E-mail, Clarence Major to author, 15 May 2009. 2. Clarence Major Archives, Books, box 3. 3. Ibid. 4. Ibid. 5. See De St. Jorre, Venus Bound, 93–111 and 281–90, for the story of legal battles with J. P. Donleavy, for example. 252 ] notes to pages 43–85 6. Clarence Major Archives, Books, box 3. 7. Lehmann-Haupt, “Books of the Times.” 8. Clarence Major Archives, Books, box 3. 9. For additional commentary on the novel, see Coleman, “Clarence Major’s AllNight Visitors.” 10. For information on Umbra, see Dent, “Umbra Days”; Thomas, “Shadow World”; and Hernton, “Umbra.” 11. See Baraka, “Black Art,” in LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka Reader, 219-20. 12. Clarence Major, “Making Up Reality,” unpublished manuscript, Clarence Major Archives, Nonfiction, box 3. 13. Review of The New Black Poetry. 14. Walter Lowenfels to Clarence Major, 15 November 1966, Clarence Major Archives, Correspondence, box 12; Major to William Meredith, 13 September 1967, Clarence Major Archives, Correspondence, box 7. 15. See Clarence Major Archives, Books, box 7, for the series of letters. 16. Major, “From Chicago to Yugoslavia,” 113. 17. Ibid., 133. 18. Ibid., 135. 19. Joyce, Gatekeepers of Black Culture, 101. 20. Clarence Major Archives, Nonfiction, box 3. chapter 4. Beginning a Professional Career, 1975–1980 1. E-mail, Major to author, 15 January 2010. 2. Kostelanetz, “Alternative Book Publishers.” 3. Clarence Major Archives, Books, box 14. 4. E-mail, Major to author, 22 January 2010. 5. Ibid., 11 January 2011. 6. Ibid., 23 January 2010. 7. “Queen Anne, Pamunkey (ca. 1650–1725),” AAA Native Arts website, accessed 3 August 2011, http://www.aaanativearts.com/article1125.html. 8. Bert Williams quoted in Brooks, Lost Sounds, 174. 9. MacLeish, “Ars Poetica,” Collected Poems, 106. 10. On the origin of cakewalk, see Salzman, Smith, and West, Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, 1:175. 11. Clarence Major Archives, Correspondence, University of the State of New York (Albany), box 29. 12. David Bates, “A Brief History of the Union Institute and University,” 2002, accessed 3 August 2011, http://people.umass.edu/~hendra/Briefhis.html. 13. E-mail, Major to author, 8 February 2010 14. Clarence Major Archives, Correspondence, Union Graduate School, box 28. notes to pages 85–112 [ 253 15. Clarence Major to Russell Banks, 12 June 1976, Russell Banks Papers, box 62. 16. See “Struga Poetry Readings,” Struga website, accessed 3 August 2011, www.svp .org.mk/en/history.html, for a brief history of the poetry festival. 17. Weedon, Post-War Women’s Writing in German, 58. chapter 5. The Machinery of Postmodernism 1. See Joyce, Gatekeepers of Black Culture, 92–94. 2. O’Brien, “Is Black Literature beyond Criticism?” 3. Major to Sukenick, 26 April 1978, Clarence Major Archives, Correspondence, box 28. 4. Major to Banks, 4 December 1978, and Major to Banks, 2 January 1980, Russell Banks Papers, box 62. 5. Quoted at Maud Newton, “The Other Side of the Window: Novelist Jonathan Baumbach on Independent Publishing,” Maud Newton blog, accessed 25 May 2011, http://maudnewton.com/blog/?p=9125. 6. McCaffery, Contemporary Literature, 99–100. 7. Sukenick, “Guest Word.” 8. Jeffrey DeShell, R. M. Berry, Lance Olsen, and Matthew Kirkpatrick, “The Fiction Collective Story,” Fiction Collective Two website, accessed 3 August 2011, http:// fc2.org/about_us.aspx. 9. Baumbach to Sukenick, 24 December 1974, Ronald Sukenick Papers, box 60. 10. See various materials in Ronald Sukenick Papers, boxes 59 and 60. 11. E-mail, Major to author, 17 May 2010. 12. Baumbach to Sukenick, 10 January 1974, Ronald Sukenick Papers, box 60. chapter...