Tom Clark was born in Chicago, Illinois on March 1, 1941. He graduated from the University of Michigan where he received a Hopwood Award for poetry. He is a poet, editor and biographer. His works include Junkets on a Sad Planet: Scenes from the Life of John Keats, Charles Olson: The Allegory of a Poet's Life, Light and Shade: New and Selected Poems, and Threnody.