Clifton currently holds a teaching position in English at Colorado State University-Pueblo, prior to which he taught at Pueblo Community College.
[5] Undertaking his undergraduate studies in English at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, during a summer vacation in 1972 he aided a teacher in the construction of an adobe house near Taos, New Mexico.
Here, he read a copy of Robert Graves' The White Goddess; believing that it represented a "religion for poets", it sparked his interest in Paganism.
[5][6] Returning to Reed for his final year, he read more of Graves' work, producing his thesis – a book of poems entitled Queen Famine – under his influence.
[5] In 2001, Clifton became editor of The Pomegranate, a scholarly journal devoted to Pagan studies then based in North America.