WILLIAM BEDFORD CLARK was educated at the University of Oklahoma (BA 1969) and Louisiana State University (MA 1971; PhD 1973) and did a postdoctoral year at Yale. He taught at North Carolina A&T State University for three years before joining the English faculty at Texas A&M in 1977. Clark served at A&M for 43 years and was awarded emeritus status in 2022. Over the course of a half-century, he published widely in the field of American literature, with an emphasis on Southern writing. Best-known as a scholar, critic, and editor, Clark returned to the writing of poetry in midlife, and his work appeared in a variety of little magazines and leading quarterlies. His collection Blue Norther (Texas Review Press 2010) was favorably received by a number of leading contemporaries. The chapbook Ways and Means (Caminada Bay Press) was printed in a limited edition in 2016 and is now a collector's item.