Clarence Major - Recognition

Recognition

Major won a NationaL Council on the Arts Award for his poetry collection Swallow the Lake in 1970, and the following year was awarded a New York Cultural Foundation grant for poetry. Reflexe et Ossature (1982), the French translation of Reflex and Bone Structure (1975), was nominated for the Prix Maurice Coindreau (1982). Such Was The Season (1987) was a Literary Guild book club selection in 1988. The same year The New York Times Book Review recommended it on its annual "Summer Reading" list. Painted Turtle: Woman With Guitar (1988) was cited by The New York Times Book Review as a "Notable Book of The Year" 1988. Major won a Bronze Medal as a finalist for the National Book Award in 1999 for Configurations: New and Selected Poems 1958-1998 (Copper Canyon Press). He won the Pushcart Prize for the short story "My Mother and Mitch", in 1989. In 2002 he won the Stephen Henderson Poetry Award for Outstanding Achievement. His novel My Amputations (1986) won the Western States Book Award and was republished in 2008 with an introduction by Lawrence Hogue. Dirty Bird Blues won the Sister Circle Book Award in 1999. Major was awarded the International Literary Hall of Fame award (Chicago State University) in 2001.

• Grant, Struga Yugoslavia International Poetry Festival-U.S. State Department Educational & Cultural Exchange Program, 1975.
• Grant, Fulbright-Hays Inter-University Exchange Award: Franco-American Commission for Educational Exchange—Nice, France, 1981-1983
• Grant, United Kingdom Educational Commission, London, England, 1981.
• Grant, International Communication Agency, American Embassy, London, England, 1982.
• Grant, Commission for Education and Cultural Exchange Between Italy and the U.S. of America, Rome, Italy, 1982.
• Grant, Africa Regional Services, United States International Communication Agency, Paris, France, 1982.
• Grant, IREX (Poland cultural trip) 1984.
• Grant, U.S. Information Service, American Embassy, Paris, France, 1985.