His words could easily be magnified in print, and he was much interviewed. Michael McClure, who took part in a 1955 San Francisco poetry reading that is considered the founding moment of the Beat generation and who went on to collaborate with rock musicians such as. March 16, 2003. beat poet , Michael McClure in Oakland Hills. His audiences have ranged from a dozen at a Maui bookstore, to tens of thousands at San Franciscos Human Be-in in San Francisco, and to multitudes at Airlift Africa. I thought it was a nature poem about mammal sexuality and mammal love. For McClure, I think, centering his poems paralleled the competing but not necessarily contradictory paradigms of abstract expressionism: art as an expression of its own objecthood and art as a record of its own creation. The play has played a role in U.S. censorship and free speech battles since 1966 when it won the first lawsuit. In addition to his wife, whom he married in 1997, he is survived by a daughter from his first marriage, Dr. Jane McClure. Later The Beard received two Obies in N.Y.C. I close my eyes in divinity and pain.I blink in solemnity and unsolemn joy.I smile at myself in my movements. . He had an eleven-year run as playwright-in-residence with San Francisco's Magic Theatre where his operetta "Minnie Mouse and the Tap-Dancing Buddha" had an extended run. Our mission is to get Southern California reading and talking. McClure later courted controversy as a playwright with his play The Beard. Garrett Caples is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Power Ballads (Wave, 2016). Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club thats right for you for free. McClures songs include Mercedes Benz, popularized by Janis Joplin. But Lane Moores new book will help you find your people, How Judy Blumes Margaret became a movie: Time travel and no streamers, for a start, What would you do to save a marriage? As his editor for Mephistos & Other Poems (2016), I can attest to how deliberate his placement of lines could be: a series of tabs and spacebars nightmarish to prepare to import into InDesign. If we take the book at its wordand he speaks of it in his Authors Note as an attempt to show that [his] memory was still intactthe overwhelming impression it leaves is of self-consciousness as a major motivating force in his life. Michael McClure, one of the famed Beat poets of San Francisco whose career as a poet eclipsed many others in popular culture, has died. I KNOW EVERYTHING! "[citation needed]. Michael McClure, famed Beat poet who helped launch the SF Renaissance, dead at 87 Sam Whiting May 5, 2020 Updated: May 7, 2020, 8:57 am Beat poet Michael McClure is seen on his deck with. I close my eyes in divinity and pain. The contemporary American poetic tradition known as ecopoetics arguably springs from their performances at the Six Gallery reading, where Snyder read A Berry Feast while McClure read For the Death of 100 Whales, which looks, in part, like this: The sleek wolvesMowers and reapers of sea kine.THE GIANT TADPOLES(Meat their algae)LeptLike sheep or children.Shot from the seas bore.(Goya!! He made two television documentaries The Maze and September Blackberries and was featured in several films, including Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz (1978), where he recites from The Canterbury Tales; Norman Mailer's Beyond the Law (1968); and, most prominently, Peter Fonda's The Hired Hand (1971). McClures poetry is a blob of protoplasmic energy. Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure shares a place with the great William Blake, with the visionary Shelley, with the passionate D.H. Lawrence Robert Creeley, What appeals to me most about Michaels poems is the fury and imagery of them. McClure was a popular, celebrated professor of English at the California College of Arts and Crafts (now renamed California College of the Arts), in Oakland, California, for many years. He was so good-looking, he should have been a movie star instead of a poet, Lawrence Ferlinghetti told The Times by phone. The Beard eventually transferred to New York where at the 19671968 Obie Theatre Awards, it won Best Director and Best Actress. He was 87. Please try again. Love is body beating upon body, the confrontation of face and face or shoulder and shoulder. Genres: Beat Poetry. McClure also released albums of his work with minimalist composer Terry Riley. He was 87 years old. WE HAVE GONE GONE. McClure was a close friend of the Doors' lead singer Jim Morrison and is generally acknowledged as having been responsible for promoting Morrison as a poet. Martin Scorsese) where he reads from The Canterbury Tales; Beyond the Law (dir. The Times once called him a role model for Jim Morrison. THERE ARE HILLS LIKE SHARKFINS and clods of mud. This might go on forever. McClure had the good fortune, though, to be at City Lights in 1965 with Ginsberg and musicians Bob Dylan and Robbie Robertson. He had one daughter from his first marriage to Joanna McClure. California College of the Arts for over 40 years. The rejection of this humanism in favor of what Ferlinghetti terms mammalism finds its idealized totemic expression in McClures veneration of the lion, seen as a creature with no separation between thought and action, coupled with the sheer muscular power to successfully execute the intent manifest in its actions. McClure has made two television documentaries The Maze and September Blackberries. His 1965 play The Beard, which depicts an imagined sexual encounter between Jean Harlow and Billy the Kid, gained notoriety when it was (unsuccessfully) brought to trial on charges of obscenity. This shared perspective provided an instant bond between Synder and McClure when they met in the mid-1950s. I returned home and began to write. Hosted by Al Filreis and featuring Jerome Rothenberg, Selena Dyer, and Jonathan Dick. He lived in Oakland with his wife, the sculptor Amy Evans McClure, before his death in 2020. Michael McClure was born on October 20, 1932. Finding aid to Michael McClure papers at Columbia University. [2] McClure remained active as a poet, essayist and playwright until his death and lived with his second wife, Amy, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations. Your smile is my kindnessand it thrills me. I am smiling. I am separate. I blink in solemnity and unsolemn joy. Soul/mind are entanglements invented by the demented and domesticated. They also republished McClures 1964 collection Ghost Tantras in 2013. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that. But he was a poet first. The stream was dimpled with flashing moonlight and I think it had a little song. I was his friend and editor at City Lights, and I knew he wasnt doing well, battling complications from a stroke the previous year. Actors in several productions were arrested on charges including public lewdness. A round brown leaf whirls at the tip. He has given readings in venues as varied as the Fillmore Ballroom, Yale, Stanford and The National Biodiversity Conference. Then I turned and viewed across the darkening field and there was a huge flightless hunting fowl (the kind that ate mammals in the Pliocene). I would give him questions in advance and he would consider them and even write out responses. He sort of joined the Beats, Ferlinghetti said. He had a long and varied career as a poet, playwright, novelist and lyricist. McClure has worked extensively with his old friend Ray Manzarek, the Doors keyboardist, at festivals and colleges and clubs. A key figure in the 1950s San Francisco scene that formed around Lawrence. Esteemed Beat poet Michael McClure has died of complications from a stroke he suffered last year. Educated at the Municipal University of Wichita (1951-1953), the University of Arizona (1953-1954) and San Francisco State College (B.A., 1955)[1][2] McClure's first book of poetry, Passage, was published in 1956 by small press publisher Jonathan Williams. But over drinks, we started talking. The bridge was dark from the shadows of the poplars and the evergreens there. McClure has also released CDs of his work with minimalist composer Terry Riley. Join our community book club. The revolutionary nature of Michaels work, particularly from the mid-50s through the mid-70s and including plays like The Beard (1965), much persecuted by Bay Area and L.A. police for its symbolic depiction of cunnilingus, is easy to lose sight of within a culture that is at once more permissive and more puritanical than the one from which McClure emerged. His awards, include a Guggenheim Felowship, the Obie Award for Best Play, the Alfred Jarry Award, and a Rockefeller grant for playwriting. Then I found that on the bridge we were among a herd of black WildebeestsBlack Gnus. The Mystery of the Hunt It's the mystery of the hunt that intrigues me, That drives us like lemmings, but cautiously The search for a bright square cloudthe scent of lemon verbena Or to learn rules for the game the sea otters . This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt. Soon we came to a cottage of white clapboards behind a big white clapboard house and knocked on the door; it was answered by a young man with long hair who was from the Incredible String Band. Michael McClure, who at 22 helped usher in the Beat movement as part of a famed poetry reading at the Six Gallery in San Francisco, then went on to a long and varied career as a poet,. He lived in another world.. Other plays include Josephine The Mouse Singer and VKTMS. They began enacting the play and I began typing it up. Such a frank expression of male heterosexual desire is justly viewed with suspicion these days, as so much beat-era writing simply replicates mainstream patriarchal values within the counterculture. As he wrote in his 1963 poem The Child, Who were the lion men with faces of fur / and manes / who bent by my crib to bless me?. Michael McClures travels include Africa, Mexico, South America, India, Thailand and Japan. Poems are the property of their respective owners. The audience included more than a hundred ACLU-invited expert witnesses, including political activists, academics, writers and even members of the clergy. McClures songs include Mercedes Benz, popularized by Janis Joplin and new songs which have been performed by The Twenty-first Century Doors. Francis Crick, discoverer of the DNA double helix, This poetry is soulful freedom at play in the Desire-realm Third Mind, a film of Michael and Rays conversations and performances, was premiered by the Sun Dance Channel. Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout. But when I began visiting Michael at home, I had a sense that he was still on even in private. It's the mystery of the hunt that intrigues me, That drives us like lemmings, but cautiously The search for a bright square cloudthe scent of lemon verbena Or to learn rules for the game the sea otters Play in the surf. I could feel the presence of Billy the Kid and Jean Harlow broadcasting from the beautiful poster to the back of my head out towards the ocean. By the next day, Michael was standing next to Bob Dylan and competing with him in dandiacal splendor in a Larry Keenan photograph in the New York Times obituary section. Then we passed over the heavy bridge and down a little trail on the far side of the meadow, walking back in the direction we had been. Even in the semi-darkness the softness of their brown feathers made curls pliant as a young mother's hair. I asked Snyder whether Michael benefitted from his close relationship with a typesetter like Dave Haselwood, his childhood friend from Wichita. Why is Frank McCourt really pushing it? WalkingI step higher in carefulness. Reprinted with permission of City Lights Books. Michael McClure (born October 20, 1932) is an American poet, playwright, songwriter, and novelist. I see all. Or else, knowing him was simply unlike knowing other poets Id known. One of the poets readings was to, and with, four lions at the San Francisco Zoo a film of it is is sometimes shown on TV. Having failed in their attempts to censor Allen Ginsberg's Howl, the performances of Lenny Bruce and the San Francisco Mime Troupe, the police department was intent to succeed this time. I could tell that he genuinely liked me, that he even felt affection for me, but at the same time there were vast Midwestern reserves within him. Michael, perhaps enviably, due to the unique status the beat generation occupies in American letters, has a more civilian audience, amateurs and non-practitioners, fans who appreciate art for its own sake rather as grist for their own practice and he still put up good poetry numbers in terms of sales. On the other hand, the gestural conception of abstract expressionism identified by Harold Rosenberg as action painting mirrors the breath-as-unit conception of projective verse, and Lamantia in his selected prose Preserving Fire (2018) indeed calls McClure an action painter in words. Centering allows a freedom of line length unavailable to left-justification, as we see in 100 Whales when he follows the one-word line Incense with the six-word Gnashed at their tails and brothers. As a response to the question of open-field composition, centering satisfied an aesthetic need as well as a philosophical one for an artist in pursuit of the unity of existence, both in terms of consciousness and natural world. SoundCloud and There is an essence in fear overcome and I overcame fright in passing those zebras and this black Wildebeest. One of McCure's readings was to, and with, lions at the San Francisco Zoo a film of it can be seen on his website. A second performance followed at Bill Graham's Fillmore Auditorium on the July 24, 1966. The play tells of a fictional encounter in the blue velvet of eternity between Billy the Kid and Jean Harlow and is a theatrical exploration of his "Meat Politics" theory, in which all human beings are "bags of meat." Twitter, In 1966, McClure went so far as to read one of his poems to lions at the San Francisco Zoo. Mr. McClure in 1972. His natural reserve was exacerbated by fame, insofar as it had made him cautious, for fear of being misquoted or quoted out of context. He stood on one leg in the setting sun by the sparkling stream that cut across the meadow to the bridge.

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