Clarence Major (born December 31, 1936) is an American poet, painter, and novelist; winner of the 2015 "Lifetime Achievement Award in the Fine Arts", presented by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.

In his early twenties he started publishing his own literary magazine, Coercion Review, which featured poets and writers such as Henry Miller, Kenneth Patchen and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

As a teenager, Major was influenced by the monumental Van Gogh Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago, February 1 – April 16, 1950.

After a stint in the Air Force, Major left the Midwest and moved to New York City in December 1966.

On a State Department-sponsored trip in 1975 he was a participant at the International Poetry Festival in Struga, Yugoslavia, where he read his work with Leopold Sedar Senghor and other poets from around the world.

In 1977, with John Ashbery and other poets from various countries, Major read at the Poetry International in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

For the most reliable biographical information on Clarence Major see Contemporary Authors, Volume 337, 2013, pages 270–312, ISBN 978-1-4144-8925-4.

[7] 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).

In 2002 he won the Stephen Henderson Poetry Award for Outstanding Achievement, presented by the African American Literature and Culture Society.

He received the "2015 Lifetime Achievement Award in the Fine Arts" from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.

Major also attended sketch and lecture classes during the same period in Fullerton Hall at the Art Institute of Chicago.

[11] Major's apprentice artwork was first shown to the public in a group show in the mid-1950s at Gales Gallery on Sixty-Third Street, Chicago.

Exhibition catalogs: Black: A Celebration of African American Art in Sacramento-Area Collections, 2008; Configurations, paintings by Clarence Major, Pierre Menard Gallery, Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA, 2010; Myself Painting, paintings by Clarence Major, University Gallery, The Center for Performing Arts, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana, 2011; The Writers' Brush: An Exhibition of Art Work by Writers by Donald Friedman and John Wronoski, Introduction by Joseph McElroy, New York: Anita Shapolsky Art Foundation, 2014 (ISBN 978-1-4675-7558-4).

Major curated the exhibition of paintings Spirit Made Visible, containing the works of Robert Colescott, John Abduljaami, Mike Henderson, Oliver Jackson, Mary Lovelace O'Neal, Joe Overstreet, Raymond Saunders, and others, as well by Major himself, at the John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, California, May 9–31, 1992.