Brian Clements has been writing most of his life. He is the author of several poems and editor of the anthology, An Introduction to the Prose Poem, volumes of poetry from Quale Press, Texas Review Press, and Meritage Press, and innovative online projects. He was the founder of the small press Firewheel Editions, which published the Clements-edited Sentence: a Journal of Prose Poetics.
Brian’s poetic lines take his readers in a life that represents its highest point of consciousness, drawing you into his world with its greatest power and its most delicate sensibility. Clements once said that writing for him tends to be a problem-solving, exploratory in the way that a land surveyor explores—mapping out a piece of land, finding its contours, its boundaries, getting to know it by knowing its possibilities.
Brian earned his Ph.D. degree from Binghamton University in 1993 and, since then, has taught writing and literature at Binghamton, Broome Community College, the University of Texas at Dallas, University of North Texas, Southern Methodist University (his alma mater), and Western Connecticut State University, where he was the founding Coordinator of the innovative Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Creative and Professional Writing.
During the 90s in Dallas, he helped found the non-profit literary center, The Writer’s Garret. He served as its inaugural Assistant Director before working for six (6) years in Technical Communications for clients such as Texas Instruments Kodak Health Imaging and smaller startup companies. He also founded and edited the small press Firewheel Editions, which published the acclaimed journal, Sentence: a Journal of Prose Poetics, and books and chapbooks by Denise Duhamel, Neil de la Flor, and Maureen Seaton, Catherine Sasanov, Rauan Klassnik, among others.
He is an author of numerous books, a kind-hearted professor, husband, father, and active community member of Newtown, Connecticut – hit by the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary, where his wife taught second grade.
The tragedy happened in December 2012, in which Brian’s wife worked as a teacher at Sandy Hook School–which his son, Jacob, a young jazz musician, and his daughter, Sarah, both attended. Twenty children and six educators then were murdered by a mercurial person with access to an arsenal weapon. Since then, Brian, his wife Abbey, and his daughter Sarah have been active in the movement to reduce gun violence by fighting for a better system of background checks for all gun purchases, better tracking of weapon ownership, holding those responsible for negligent gun fatalities and injuries accountable, getting assault weaponry and military ammunition off of the consumer market, and releasing the stranglehold that the National Rifle Association holds on so many national officeholders.
There have been so many life-changing (probably: brain-changing) books for Brian. There was one book that opened his teenage eyes to the possibility of writing in a contemporary voice and sending that chill up the spine and into the hairline. It was Seamus Heaney’s Poems 1965-1975, which he read in probably 1984 or 1985 for a writing class at Hendrix College. According to Brian, before reading the said book, poetry only existed for him as something done in the past. Though Heaney’s work did not end up being a model for his own, he still felt the gut-punch of “Mid-Term Break” and treasured the exciting strangeness of the bog people’s poems.
Further, among the many things his readers admire about Brian is his insistence on staying attuned to possibilities despite the inevitable limitations in humanity and language.
Brian continues to serve as Professor of Writing, Linguistics, and Creative Process at Western Connecticut State University and is available for readings, events, and freelance editing and writing projects.
