University of Arizona Poetry Center

In Memoriam LaVerne Harrell Clark – June 6, 1929- February 24, 2008

LaVerne Clark

We were saddened to learn that writer, photographer and first Director of the Poetry Center, LaVerne Harrell Clark, died in her home town of Smithville, Texas on February 24. LaVerne was an important figure in Poetry Center history, when it was still known as the Ruth Stephan Poetry Center. We are also forever grateful to her for initiating the tradition of photographing writers who visited Tucson to read in our Reading Series and creating our first “wall of poets,” a gallery of black and white portraits.

Poetry Center librarian Rodney Phillips and I had the pleasure of visiting LaVerne and her husband L.D. Clark in their Smithville home in the spring of 2005, during the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference in Austin, Texas. LaVerne regaled us with endless, amusing stories of the Poetry Center’s early days and brought us up to date on her own work as a writer and folklorist.

When LaVerne came to work at the Poetry Center on January 2, 1962, a second cottage purchased by Ruth Stephen had just been remodeled to become the new library. The first cottage remained the “Poet’s Cottage,” for visiting writers. In her 1984 article, “The Early Days of the University of Arizona Poetry Center,” she says, “my first job was to shelve 500 books from the guest cottage as a start on our new library and begin immediately building up lists and ordering other titles. There was furniture to be bought for every room, an audio-record listening system room to be created…Moreover groundwork had to be set up for the…reading of our first visiting poet, Stanley Kunitz.”

Just as the library collection has grown from 500 books to over 60,000 items, the photography collection that LaVerne developed for us now comprises thousands of portraits and snapshots of visiting writers from 1962 to the present day. Lois Shelton and Christine Krikliwy maintained the tradition that sprang from LaVerne’s notion that “each writer poet who visited the Center would leave behind a little of him [or her] self.”
Many of LaVerne’s photographs can be seen on the new Wall of Poets in our Helen S. Schaefer Building (a gift from Carol DuVal Whiteman).

LaVerne Clarke and Gail Browne - 2006

LaVerne published two companion books which document many of her photographs: The Face of Poetry:101 Poets of the 60s and 70s and Focus 101: An Illustrated Biography (both 1979). Both of these books were groundbreaking in their own right, combining photographs of contemporary authors with their poems in one case, and with biographical essays in the other. They can be found in librarian’s office in the Poetry Center.

LaVerne resigned as Director of the Poetry Center in 1966 to pursue a career as a writer of fiction and non-fiction. Her books include, They Sang for Horses: The Impact of the Horse on the Folklore of the Navajo and Apache, published by the University of Arizona Press in 1966 and winner of the Folklore Award from the University of Chicago; The Deadly Swarm & Other Stories (1985); A New Dimension of an Old Affinity (1996); and Keepers of the Earth (1997). During the years that she still resided in Tucson, prior to returning to the Smithville in 1999, she continued to photograph visiting writers and develop her extensive body of photographic work.

She will be remembered by all of us at the Poetry Center for her gifts of leadership and talent.

-Gail Browne, Executive Director