Clarence Major is an acclaimed poet, novelist, painter, essayist, editor, and lexicographer whose work has helped shape contemporary American literature for more than six decades. The author of fifteen collections of poetry-including Configurations: New and Selected Poems, 1958-1998, a National Book Award finalist, and From Now On: New and Selected Poems 1970-2015-he has also published numerous novels, essays, dictionaries of African American language, and influential anthologies. A recipient of the PEN Oakland/Reginald Lockett Lifetime Achievement Award, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award in the Fine Arts, a Fulbright Fellowship, two Pushcart Prizes, and many other honors, Major is also an accomplished painter whose work has been exhibited nationally. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of twentieth-century American literature at the University of California, Davis.