Tiana Clark

Biography

Tiana Clark is the author of the poetry collections I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood (Pittsburgh UP, 2018) and Equilibrium (Bull City, 2016). Her next two books—Scorched Earth, a poetry collection, and Begging to be Saved, a memoir—are forthcoming with Atria. She teaches at the Sewanee School of Letters and is the Grace Hazard Conkling Writer-in-Residence at Smith College. 

See Work

POETRY / Fall 2023

At the Tate

By Tiana Clark

I’m lonely and the only Black person inside the paid Cézanne 

exhibit today.

POETRY / Summer 2019

I Masturbate Then Pray to God

By Tiana Clark


to forgive me I masturbate 
then pray to God to forgive me 
I masturbate then hate myself 
after scrolling endlessly through 
porn I never find exactly what it is 
that I’m looking for because there is 
no category for my type of desire