​John Lee Clark

John Lee Clark is the author of the essay collection Where I Stand (Handtype Press, 2014). He also edited the anthologies Deaf American Poetry (Gallaudet University Press, 2009) and Deaf Lit Extravaganza (Handtype Press, 2013). His essays and poems have appeared in many publications, including The Chronicle of Higher Education, Ecotone, McSweeney’s, The Nation, Poem-a-Day, Poetry, Poetry International, Rattle, The Seneca Review, Sign Language Studies, and Wordgathering. In 2015 Split This Rock named him a finalist for the Freedom Plow Award for Poetry and Activism. From 2000 to 2007, he and his partner Adrean Clark ran a small press dedicated to the literatures of sign language communities. The Tactile Mind Press produced a quarterly literary journal, a weekly e-zine, books, and DVDs of ASL storytelling and poetry. The Clarks closed the press to pursue further their respective careers in poetry and visual art. John Lee has since won many grants and fellowships for his poetry, including support from VSA Minnesota, Minnesota State Arts Board, Intermedia Arts Center, and The Loft Literary Center. He is also immersed in the Protactile movement, which revolves around the emergence of a new language within the DeafBlind community. Among his roles in the movement is as a member of the Tactile Mind Research Collaborative at Gallaudet University, trainer for the newly established DeafBlind Interpreting National Resource and Training Center, and research consultant with a National Science Foundation grant studying Protactile phonology, Drs. Terra Edwards and Diane Brentari principal investigators. Adrean, meanwhile, has earned a MFA in visual art and is pioneering an ASL-centric aesthetics in visual art, comics, and both written and spoken ASL. They live in Hopkins, Minnesota, with their three sons.