McClure, who died May 4 at 87 after suffering a stroke last year, was a countercultural figure who was present, Zelig-like, at key moments in San Francisco's Beat heyday and beyond. His books of poetry include Jaguar Skies, Dark Brown, Huge Dreams, Rebel Lions, Mysteriosos, and Of Indigo and Saffron. McClure, who died May 4 at 87 after suffering a stroke last year, was a countercultural figure who was present, Zelig-like, at key moments in San Franciscos Beat heyday and beyond. Michael McClure discography and songs: Music profile for Michael McClure, born 20 October 1932. The night, Mr. McClure wrote in Scratching the Beat Surface: Essays on New Vision From Blake to Kerouac (1982), constituted a collective throwing down of the gauntlet. McClure's journalism has been featured in Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. The day Michael was cremated, I read his copy of his autobiographical novel The Mad Cub (1970), on the second page of which he writes, I can hardly walk or hold a coffee cup I am so eaten by self-consciousness. I was struck by this sentence because it accorded so thoroughly with my sense of him. In addition to his wife, whom he married in 1997, he is survived by a daughter from his first marriage, Dr. Jane McClure. In addition, he was inducted into the San Francisco State University Alumni Hall of Fame in 2014. The birthplaceof Brahms. Other plays include Josephine The Mouse Singer and VKTMS. He once told me, around the time City Lights was republishing his 1964 beast language classic Ghost Tantras, that his use of centering developed from his attempt to find a poetic analog for abstract expressionism; he had, in fact, come to San Francisco to study painting at the California School of Fine Arts, but immediately decamped for SF State to study poetry with Robert Duncan, who encouraged his interest in Charles Olson and projective verse. We became close friends. 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. What the Six Gallery really did was show us that there was an audience out there that really wanted to hear poetry off the page, he told The Washington Post in 2017. The evening may have belonged to Mr. Ginsberg, but Mr. McClure had his own moments of fame and notoriety in the ensuing years. The poems helped fuel the eco-poetics movement, which addresses environmental concerns. 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. He had long hair, and I had long hair. He has also written a book of essays called. He started college there as well before switching to the University of Arizona, but an interest in art took him to San Francisco in 1954. Were all sentient beings, equally constructed of the same kind of chemistries and the same kinds of dynamics. (As Michael himself puts it in Wolf Net, WHEN A MAN DOES NOT ADMIT THAT HE IS AN ANIMAL, he is less than an animal.). We dont share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we dont sell your information to others. We both looked, holding hands, and I felt your wide-eyed drinking-in of things. March 16, 2003. beat poet , Michael McClure in Oakland Hills. I asked Snyder whether Michael benefitted from his close relationship with a typesetter like Dave Haselwood, his childhood friend from Wichita. The role model for Jim Morrison, as the Los Angeles Times characterized Michael McClure, has found sources in music from Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis to the composer Terry Riley with whom his poetry performances frequently share a bill. An erotic serial poem in three major movements, Dark Brown finds McClure reveling in the freedom of expression newly won for poetry by Howl and Other Poems (1956), applying his philosophical monism to the union of self and other in the act of making love. The truth is we were never in a different category at all. Hawks with pale bellies perch on the cactus, their bodies are portholes to other dimensions. California College of the Arts for over 40 years. and filled with dark chocolate cake. McClure and Manzareks second CD carries on their explorations. A last CD, Piano Poems, recorded in San Francisco, was released in 2012. His novels are The Mad Cub and The Adept. Michael, granted, was 80 by the time we started hanging out, older than either of them had been, though Id become fast friends with Richard O. Moore when he was 90, so Im not sure age was the determining factor. I wasnt sure it was going to work, Snyder admitted, though he was won over by listening to his friend read aloud. He had one daughter from his first marriage to Joanna McClure. (Paul Chinn / San Francisco Chronicle via Associated Press), Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, A hardcore coming-of-age novel nails the glitter and grime of L.A.s 80s metal scene, 10 books to add to your reading list this May, Aging beloved YA author Judy Blumes inevitable foil isnt so bad after all, Adult friendship is hard. Except for books, Amazon will display a List Price if the product was purchased by customers on Amazon or offered by other retailers at or above the List Price in at least the past 90 days. His work as a novelist includes the autobiographical The Mad Cub and The Adept. There is no Soul. There is no Time! He was 87. Enhancements you chose aren't available for this seller. A production in Los Angeles turned into a circus of sorts. 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. McClures thinking is brave, obdurate, passionate He took us inside and he played an instrument like a guitar and he danced as he played it. A Buddhist, McClure experimented with poems that were self-conscious of the form itself. He was 87. I am friendly with the achein my belly. That night Mr. Ginsberg premiered an early version of Howl, the landmark poem (I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness) that became the defining work of the Beat generation. The pattern, the spirit, the fiery demon That link them together And pull their freedom into our senses, The smell of a shrub, a cloud, the action of animals The rising, the exuberance, when the mystery is unveiled. Martin Scorsese) where he reads from The Canterbury Tales; Beyond the Law (dir. Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout. Its opening section gives us a rare view into his thoughts about his own mortality, particularly in the moving sequence "Death Poems." But failing that, any edition will do, to experience Michaels poetry at its transcendent heights. One was two feet awayturned toward me looking me eye-into-eye. A modern-day romantic in the mode of Shelley, McClure had to look the part, and he did. Today McClure is more active than ever, writing and performing his poetry at festivals, and colleges and clubs across the country. Esteemed Beat poet Michael McClure has died of complications from a stroke he suffered last year. SAN FRANCISCO (AP) Michael McClure, one of the famed Beat poets of San Francisco whose career as a poet eclipsed many others in popular culture, has died. McClure reads with an actors command and a singers timing, his impact transports audiences to a very different and intriguing place. He has given hundreds of reading in venues as varied as the Fillmore Ballroom, Yale University, Stanford, The National Biodiversity Conference at the Smithsonian, and the Library of Congress. His journalism has been featured in The Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, the L.A. Times and San Francisco Chronicle. Michaels use of centering is as singular as it is signature; I know of only a few poets who have made use of this formhis near-contemporaries Ronald Johnson and Gustaf Sobin, for example, or more recently Ish Kleinbut none who have made it so fundamental a part of their work as McClure. It has since played successfully all over the world and is a favorite with American university drama groups. McClure also contributed the afterword to No One Here Gets Out Alive, Jerry Hopkins's and Danny Sugerman's seminal Doors biography. Jack Kerouac (writing about McClures long poem Dark Brown). I smile at myself in my movements. And hes learned from musicians. His poetry is heavily infused with an awareness of nature, especially in the animal consciousness that often lies dormant in mankind. Dark hairand eyebrowsSWIRLin delighted delusionBIG MEMORIES OF PLEASUREenwrap a mindas substantial. At twenty-two he gave his first poetry reading at the legendary Six Gallery event in San Francisco, where Allen Ginsberg first read. He felt an affinity with the Beat poets, but I really didnt see it. City Lights did publish McClures work, most recently Mephistos and Other Poems (2016). I am friendly with the ache in my belly. As the late actor Dennis Hopper once said, Without McClures roar there would have been no Sixties., A native of Kansas who found his true home in California, McClure mingled with actors and singers, not just writers. Our mission is to get Southern California reading and talking. Grahhr! the free-spirited poet repeatedly roars at the beasts in a video documenting the event. Publishers Weekly noted of his work, McClure infuses ecstatic direct address and colloquial diction with an exquisite sensibility, one that reveals the world in its ordinary complex gorgeousness. He frequently performed his poetry with musical collaborators, including composer Terry Riley, and recorded several CDs with Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek. He sort of joined the Beats, Ferlinghetti said. I was his friend and editor at City Lights, and I knew he wasnt doing well, battling complications from a stroke the previous year. DEATH IS COMPRISED OF DEEP BLUE TORTURES. Beat poet, playwright, novelist, and documentary filmmaker Michael McClure was born in Marysville, Kansas, and raised there and in Seattle. ", McClure happened to meet British playwright, Harold Pinter, who then gave words of support to the play, which helped it become noticed and gave courage to those who staged its first production in San Francisco in 1965.[8]. Brief content visible, double tap to read full content. At age 22, Michael McClure gave his first poetry reading at the legendary Six Gallery event in San Francisco, where Allen Ginsberg first read Howl. Actors were sometimes arrested, along with the occasional director or producer. That night at the Six Gallery greatly inspired us to go ahead.. Actors in several productions were arrested on charges including public lewdness. The Rolling Stone, One of our best and wisest bard/scholars. I knowall that there is to know. Amazon has encountered an error. 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). His natural reserve was exacerbated by fame, insofar as it had made him cautious, for fear of being misquoted or quoted out of context. I am smiling. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that. 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. By the end of the week, Id been asked to write something on him, so I visited Amy at the home theyd shared, to borrow some books and take a hit from the bottle of Johnnie Walker Black hed long promised himself on his deathbed. He taught poetry for many years at the California College of the Arts. The death of Michael McClure, on May 4, 2020, caught me off-guard. Distinct.I am separate from gloom and beauty. On the one hand, Michaels poems never disappear visually, the way a left-justified poem arguably does. The painis many pointed, without anguish.Light changes the room from yellows to violet!The dark brown space behind the door is preciousintimate, silent and still. 1996-2023, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. In 1968, actor Rip Torn directed a notable production at The Royal Court Theatre and it has most recently been revived at a smaller venue, the Old Red Lion Theatre in 2006 under the direction of Nic Saunders with new music by Terry Riley. There is no logic but sequences of feeling.. He was 87. There is no Time!No answers. 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 Michael McClure Poems 1. He was so good-looking, he should have been a movie star instead of a poet, Lawrence Ferlinghetti told The Times by phone. complex. His battles with the church arent over, How Palm Springs ran out Black and Latino families to build a fantasy for rich, white people, 17 SoCal hiking trails that are blooming with wildflowers (but probably not for long! (His final book, Mule Kick Blues, will appear in the spring from City Lights.) Read Poem 2. I passed by him both afraid and unafraid of wildness as I had passed through the herd of zebras at the top of Ngorongoro Crater in front of the lodge, where from the cliff we could see a herd of elephants like ants, and the soda lake looked pink because of flamingos there. McClure performed spoken word poetry concerts with Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek until the latter's death in 2013; several albums of their work have been released. 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. The mind drifts through in the shape of a museum, in the guise of a museum dreaming dead friends: Jim, Tom, Emmet, Bill. There is no hurry. Ginsberg, in his singular phrasing, praised McClures work as a blob of protoplasmic energy.. It is these small things That when brought into vision become an inferno. Distinct. He showed up from Wichita, with a couple of other poets from Wichita, Ferlinghetti said. To be sure, there are shocking bursts of toxic masculinity in, for example, The Mad Cub, but I feel like the frenzied, even abject eroticism of Dark Brownis it the first major American poem to feature analingus?successfully undermines such retrograde ideology. But the actual interview would be a combination of him talking and reading prewritten passages that formulated what he wanted to say with some precision. 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. The bridge was dark from the shadows of the poplars and the evergreens there. A trove of rare photographs of the Beats finds a new home. II. Instagram, He has published four collections of essays, which include notes on Bob Dylan and environmental issues. I loved the old guy and knew him as well as I was able, but I dont know that I knew him well. Poetry doesn't pay. 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." For Mr. McClure, the event was also a proving ground for a concept. All the charges were dropped and the subsequent appeal lost. Yet he grew warm, wending lyrical words around the air and across the hall, The coolness fell away with his simple elegance in word and presentation McClure was controlled and read with steady jazz rhythms, a perfect, minimal chart of spoken words.. If you read his own instructions, he says, if you see all capital letters, it doesnt mean youre supposed to be louder. Academy of American Poets, 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038. On screen, McClure appeared in Martin Scorseses seminal 1978 concert film The Last Waltz perhaps the only rock documentary in which a poet reads lines by the Middle English author Geoffrey Chaucer. 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. His awards, include a Guggenheim Felowship, the Obie Award for Best Play, the Alfred Jarry Award, and a Rockefeller grant for playwriting. He had a long and varied career as a poet, playwright, novelist and lyricist. Yet he grew warm, wending lyrical words around the air and across the hall, the coolness fell away with his simple elegance in word and presentation". Soul/mind are entanglements invented by the demented and domesticated. Gentle David and even the bipolar Philip were easy, that is, the time between meeting them and becoming old pals felt infinitesimal. Take Adam Sternberghs Eden Test, The author of The Pornography Wars thinks we should watch less and listen more, They cant ban all the books: Why two banned authors are so optimistic, Sign up for the Los Angeles Times Book Club. Mr. McClure in 1972. The London Times Literary Supplement, There is no one like Michael McClure. The Mystery of the Hunt Mr. McClure gave countless poetry readings over the decades, sometimes with a musical accompanist; Ray Manzarek, keyboardist of the Doors, was a frequent performing partner. Hosted by Al Filreis and featuring Jerome Rothenberg, Selena Dyer, and Jonathan Dick. The pattern, the spirit, the fiery demon That link them together And pull their freedom into our senses, The smell of a shrub, a cloud, the action of animals The rising, the exuberance, when the mystery is unveiled. It is these small thingsand the secret behind them That fill the heart. 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. The Beard eventually transferred to New York where at the 19671968 Obie Theatre Awards, it won Best Director and Best Actress. "McClure manages a series of discoveries, and his language strikes with almost flintlike suddenness and brilliance. McClures world-wide performances include Rome; Paris; Tokyo; Lawrence, Kansas, London, a bull ring in Mexico City, The Whitney Museum, and a steam room in Nairobi for a group of African businessmen. Educated at the University of Wichita, the University of Arizona, and San Francisco State Collegewhere he studied with poet Robert Duncan. McClure famously read selections of his Ghost Tantra poetry series to the caged lions in the San Francisco Zoo. His words could easily be magnified in print, and he was much interviewed. After moving to San Francisco as a young man, he found fame as one of the five poets (including Allen Ginsberg) who read at the famous San Francisco Six Gallery reading in 1955 rendered in barely fictionalized terms in Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums. Their tiny heads (in proportion to their bodies) were bent utterly submerged in their business and sweeping side to side as a salmon doesor as a wolf does but with a Pleistocene, self-involved gentleness beyond our ken. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area hills with his wife the sculptor Amy Evans McClure. There are 0 customer reviews and 10 customer ratings. Not that he was trying to be impressive, he was well beyond that, but that there was a certain amount of performance involved, that even casual socializing cost him effort. WE HAVE GONE GONE. Witnesses offer conflicting accounts, Mars Voltas lead singer broke with Scientology and reunited with the band. McClure worked extensively with his friend Ray Manzarek, the Doors keyboardist, at festivals, colleges and clubs. I had to punch up the laundry list of why he was famous, and in his case, over a 60-year career as a poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, and performer, the scroll is long: he participated in the 1955 Six Gallery reading at which Allen Ginsberg debuted Howl; appears in two Kerouac novels as Pat McLear; collaborated with seminal artists Wallace Berman and Bruce Conner; roared at lions in an episode of poet/filmmaker Richard O. Moores public TV documentary series USA: Poetry (1965); wrote and staged the controversial play The Beard (1965); read to tens of thousands of people at the Human Be-In (1967); became tight with Jim Morrison; co-wrote Janis Joplins Mercedes Benz (1970); appeared in films like Peter Fondas The Hired Hand (1971) and Martin Scorseses The Last Waltz (1978); won two Obie awards for his Off-Broadway plays; performed and recorded with musicians like Ray Manzarek and Terry Riley; and published dozens of books, poetry and otherwise. None of us wanted to go back to the gray, chill, militaristic silence, to the intellective void to the land without poetry to the spiritual drabness.. To add the following enhancements to your purchase, choose a different seller. He has published eight books of plays and four collections of essays, including essays on Bob Dylan and on environmental issues. I know all that I need to know. He gave his first poetry reading in 1955 alongside Allen Ginsberg, who gave his first public reading of "Howl," when McClure organized the famous Six Gallery readings which would launch the legend of the Beat Poets and the San Francisco Renaissance. I see all. McClure has made two television documentaries The Maze and September Blackberries. They also republished McClures 1964 collection Ghost Tantras in 2013. But its a way of changing your mindset when you come to it.. Even in the semi-darkness the softness of their brown feathers made curls pliant as a young mother's hair. Dennis Hopper, Michael McClures poetry and prose is one of the more remarkable achievements in recent American literature. McClures, is the first major retrospective collection of a poet and Obie-winning playwright associated with the San Francisco Renaissance from its start as well as the early Beat movement. 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. Michael McClures travels include Africa, Mexico, South America, India, Thailand and Japan. The answer to feeling is my feeling.The answer to joy is joy without feeling.The room is a multicolored cherubof air and bright colors. McClures songs include "Mercedes Benz," popularized by Janis Joplin, and new songs which were performed by Riders on the Storm, a band that consisted of original Doors members Ray Manzarek and Robbie Krieger. Full content visible, double tap to read brief content. The Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, the L.A. Times and San Francisco Chronicle have published his journalism. citylights.com. Over coffee with Mr. Ginsberg, whom he had met at a party, he lamented that he didnt have time because he and his first wife were expecting a child. The American Civil Liberties Union took the case and represented the actors. He doesnt make that distinction, that theres the human world and there are the other beings in the world, Snyder said (and throughout our conversation, we couldnt help speaking of Michael in present tense). The poet is featured in Scorceses Last Waltz, in which his reading of a poem by Chaucer lilted, rolled, and seduced the audience into the lyric tonality of Middle English (Atlanta Poetry Review). [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. of a spider thread. McClure is the author of the Afterword in Jerry Hopkins's and Danny Sugerman's seminal Doors biography, No One Here Gets Out Alive. Yet he retained such vigor at 87, and briefly seemed like he might recover, so Id convinced myself he would. onto a warm hood;and less intelligentthan the thinblackspider in the morning sinkbefore breakfast time. Im sure he did! Snyder said, and I would urge any readers who want to experience McClures poetry in its ideal form to get their hands on either edition of Dark Brown that Haselwood published with Auerhahn Press (1961) and his later eponymous imprint. I am a snake and a tiptoe feather at opposite ends of the scales as they balance themselves against each other. Michael McClure reads a brief excerpt from Geoffrey Chaucer's General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales.