Poetry runs in family for Newfield’s Carolyn Clark

Carolyn Clark has been writing poetry since childhood, yet it was only later in life that she acknowledged and embraced her role as a poet. Instead, she went into academia, focusing on her career and raising a family. In this and many other ways, Clark followed in her mother’s footsteps.

“For the first 20 years, I never shared my writing with anyone,” Clark said. “Similarly, Mom’s writing always took second place to her teaching career and raising her children. As she got older, it became an important means of expression and escape for her.”

Clark’s latest book, “Poet Duet: A Mother & Daughter,” was a labor of love, a collaboration weaving together poems written by Clark and her mother, Florence Adams Clark, over their respective lifetimes. Parallels and thematic similarities are revealed by the juxtaposition of pieces written by each writer, perhaps reflecting on a single shared event or, in other instances, separated by many years and miles.

“The book is really focused on her. I wanted Mom to have the recognition of being a published author,” Carolyn said. “At the time, she was developing all the symptoms of severe dementia and moving into assisted living.”

The book came out late in 2019. Dec. 17, Clark recalls, was the date of the one and only reading the pair did together. The pandemic delayed any further promotional events, and Florence’s health continued to decline. She died in 2020.

“Mom was able to come and do one reading at Kendal with all of her old friends in attendance,” Carolyn said. “She read beautifully, very engaging. And then she would say things like, ‘Did I write this?’ Having the book come out made her happy, and I was so happy to share that with her.”

The collaboration was facilitated by Carolyn’s decision to return to the area, in part to be closer to her aging parents. Having grown up in Ithaca, it felt like coming home, she said. Though her college studies had begun at Cornell University, where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree, they eventually led her farther away, including some time abroad.

She earned her master’s in classics at Brown University before landing at Johns Hopkins University, where she earned her doctorate. Settling in Maryland, she taught languages and mythology as an adjunct professor while raising her three children.

“My friend from high school, Audrey Norberg, told me that there was this property available in Newfield,” Carolyn said. “I purchased it back in 2007, and it was nice to know it was there waiting for me while I worked the last few years before retirement.”

Carolyn and her husband, Geoff, moved to Newfield in earnest in 2015 and began building their house while living in a mini-barn on the property. The process is documented in a chapbook, a compilation of photos and poems she wrote between April and August of that year.

In it, she noted milestones such as when “carpenters Ed and Chris Pakkala completed their tasks” and the death of Newfield’s building code inspector. She called his contributions “very instrumental” and lamented that “sadly, Bill ‘Butch’ Wright could not see the build through to fruition.”

The Newfield community has been a good fit for Carolyn, and she finds inspiration in the beauty of the woods, fields and gorges that surround her.

“I tend to write in the morning, in moments of quiet,” Carolyn said. “Most of my inspiration comes when doing something physical — being outside, taking care of horses, for example, or picking apples from the nine centennial trees in our back lawn as it dips into the gulf. Every time I do something physical, I have that connection with the concrete images that speak to me.”

Carolyn showcased some of these earthy and agrarian themes during her reading at the Newfield Public Library on Sept. 22.

“I chose to read a few horse poems such as ‘The Moon Blind Mare’ because I knew some Newfield horse friends would be in attendance,” Carolyn said. “Mostly, I work with mythology references, but environmental issues are not divorced from mythology.”

As a classics scholar, Carolyn is an expert in the field.

“I have led several workshops on classical mythology for writers and often dealt with environmental issues including climate change,” she said. “In the Elizabethan world, if there was something wrong with the kingdom, there was something wrong with the planet. The resilience that people need to find in these times is not new. It is found in stories from way back.”

Carolyn finds some of that resilience in the natural world around her as well.

“The bees and monarchs that flew from our home yesterday give me hope,” Carolyn said. “Poetry is like that for me. You can’t keep a butterfly in the chrysalis. You have to let it go.”

She first learned about monarchs by attending Wendy Wright’s presentation a few years ago at the Newfield Public Library, a connection that is not lost on her.

“The Newfield Library and the sense of community are the things that I want to be much more a part of now,” Carolyn said. “I was substitute teaching at Newfield schools and I would like to get back to that when I can. I feel blessed to be living in Newfield, especially during the pandemic.”

Other members of Carolyn’s family were not as lucky. Her son was living in France during the strict lockdown, while her daughter suffered from COVID-19 alone in Brooklyn during the initial wave. Again, Carolyn captured the moment in poetry.

“Four of my poems were included in the anthology, ‘When the Virus Came Calling: COVID-19 Strikes America,’” Carolyn said. “All of the stories and poems were gathered and published in the first six months of the pandemic, including a contribution by Richard Blanco, who was a former Poet Laureate. I feel very fortunate that my poems found a way in.”

We, in Newfield, feel very fortunate that you found your way home to us. Below is an excerpt from one of Carolyn’s poems from her book, “Mnemosyne: The Long Traverse.”

Response to a beautiful letter (excerpt)

Nature is always offering
a new weave
for the wavering soul.
Some fresh foothold
for the onward climb,
even your language
lingers promise.

So the hearth is
where the heart is,
unmistakably
home.

If you are interested in reading more of Carolyn’s poetry, her books can be found locally at Buffalo Street Books, Barnes and Noble, Cornell Campus Bookstore and Odyssey Bookstore. Copies are also available at the public library and via Amazon.

Still and always a teacher, Carolyn coaches aspiring writers through The Writing Center in Bethesda, Maryland (writer.org/consultants), and works as a ski instructor at Greek Peak.