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What Lawrence Ferlinghetti, in his rather begrudging editorial note to the first edition of McClures Meat Science Essays (1963), refers to as an anti-intellectual perspective is perhaps best understood in the context of Michaels desire to eliminate self-consciousness. The List Price is the suggested retail price of a new product as provided by a manufacturer, supplier, or seller. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. Hes an expert reader too, with an actors voice, sensual and attuned finely to cadence and energies of enunciation. Michael McClure, Animal Poet : Literary Kicks Michael McClure reads a brief excerpt from Geoffrey Chaucer's General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales. 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. He has one daughter from his first marriage to Joanna McClure.). 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. McClure later courted controversy as a playwright with his play The Beard. He taught poetry for many years at the California College of the Arts. 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. Please try again. (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. Twelve days after the arrests, the play was performed at The Florence Schwimley Little Theatre, in Berkeley. Lewis Mac Adams, L.A. Weekly, Michael McClure shares a place with the great William Blake, with the visionary Shelley, with the passionate D.H. Lawrence It is these small things That when brought into vision become an inferno. We followed the Aepyorni across the old wooden bridge made of huge timbers. McClure has written twenty plays and musicals which are performed in the U.S. and abroad. Michael McClure (October 20, 1932 May 4, 2020) was an American poet, playwright, songwriter, and novelist. Later The Beard received two Obies in N.Y.C. Now aware of the play's controversial elements, the San Francisco Police Department secretly tape-recorded the first two performances and secretly filmed the third performance. I. On Facebook, 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. New Directions Publishing Corporation, $10.95 (134pp) ISBN 978--8112-1265-6 . In addition to his wife, whom he married in 1997, he is survived by a daughter from his first marriage, Dr. Jane McClure. He showed up from Wichita, with a couple of other poets from Wichita, Ferlinghetti said. Michael McClure's (October 20, 1932 - May 4, 2020) first published poems were two villanelles dedicated to Theodore Roethke published in the January, 1956, issue of Poetry. The play has played a role in U.S. censorship and free speech battles since 1966 when it won the first lawsuit. Ferlinghetti attended, but didnt read. The majority of people insist on having a line drawn in their mind and in their writing between a human being and a nonhuman being. Clear the senses bright sitting in the black chair Rocker the white walls reflecting the color of cloudsmoving over the sun. Every night the actors got two ovations from the enthusiastic packed house, The Edmonton Journal of Canada recalled in 2005 when The Beard was being revived there, one when the play ended and one when they were escorted out the door and into the paddy wagon to be booked.. "Beginning in the heart," writes McClure, Distinct. Then I found that on the bridge we were among a herd of black WildebeestsBlack Gnus. of a spider thread. He lived in another world.. He stood on one leg in the setting sun by the sparkling stream that cut across the meadow to the bridge. The play tells of a fictional encounter 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". Then, he said, "I put the poster up on fences, windows, and in liquor stores where boxing posters would be, and put one up behind my head in the room I worked in at the time, which overlooked the bridge and the ocean. 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. It debuted at the Actor's Workshop Theatre in San Francisco on the December 18, 1965. We became close friends. The occasion of the poem is a record of Michael McClure's first experimentation with the hallucinatory drug peyote, a form of mescaline used by some North American Indian tribes in religious . The song, a wry commentary on materialism less than two minutes long, became one of Ms. Joplins most recognizable tunes. Even in the semi-darkness the softness of their brown feathers made curls pliant as a young mother's hair. 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. Mr. McClures play The Beard, first performed in 1965 in San Francisco, caused censorship uproars there and in other cities where it was staged over the next decade. With the Fillmore's high profile, the play attracted an audience of 700. McClure had the good fortune, though, to be at City Lights in 1965 with Ginsberg and musicians Bob Dylan and Robbie Robertson. 1996-2023, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. We had gone beyond a point of no return and we were ready for it, for a point of no return. There is no Time!No answers. His words could easily be magnified in print, and he was much interviewed. This cool cat in a natty vest, cigarette in hand, was in the right place at the right time. Ive interviewed many artists over the years and here again Michael is singular. Amy arranged for me to call Michaels fellow Six Gallery reader Gary Snyder, himself just turned 90. A last CD, Piano Poems, recorded in San Francisco, was released in 2012. The drama has played a role in U.S. censorship and free speech battles since it won the first lawsuit. I say Love is not a dream or mind-invention. There was primal wildness in the upstanding coarse (not sleek as it really is in Africa) fur on the knobby, powerful-like-buffalo shoulders. [9], McClure during the video taping of "Add-Verse", 2004, Learn how and when to remove this template message, "Time Out talks to beat poet Michael McClure ahead of the London revival of his play, Michael McClure, famed Beat poet who helped launch the SF Renaissance, dead at 87, Michael McClure & Ray Manzarek official website, "Add-Verse" a poetry-photo-video project McClure participated in, Photograph, Michael McClure, 1951, with David Haselwood and Lee Streiff, Wichita, KS, Records of Michael McClure are held by Simon Fraser University's Special Collections and Rare Books. Mr. McClures many poetry collections include Dark Brown (1961), Star (1970) and Rain Mirror (1999). Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. He has received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Obie Award for Best Play, an NEA grant, the Alfred Jarry Award, and a Rockefeller grant for playwriting. I close my eyes in divinity and pain.I blink in solemnity and unsolemn joy.I smile at myself in my movements. )Flung blood and sperm.Incense.Gnashed at their tails and brothers,Cursed Christ of mammals,Snapped at the sun,Ran for the seas floor. Imagine Norman Mailer mated with Gertrude Stein and you have the picture.. Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout. 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. (Remember this is a dream.) Michael McClure (October 20, 1932 - May 4, 2020) was an American poet, playwright, songwriter, and novelist.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, which was rendered in barely fictionalized terms in Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums. 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. Grahhr! the free-spirited poet repeatedly roars at the beasts in a video documenting the event. [citation needed], McClure died of stroke-related complications on May 4, 2020, in Oakland, aged 87. 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. He wasnt arrested when it was performed as the writer, he was constitutionally protected but actors in several productions were, on charges including public lewdness. 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. My mind is fingers holding a pen. Michael McClure - Alchetron, The Free Social Encyclopedia Norman Mailer); and, most prominently, The Hired Hand (dir. Analysis of Michael McClure's Poems - Literary Theory and Criticism Intimacies! He was 87. Or else, knowing him was simply unlike knowing other poets Id known. The roomsnot important but like divisions of all spaceof all hideousness and beauty. WIRE magazine, from a review of the CD I Like your Eyes Liberty, The most fantastic poem in America 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. They began enacting the play and I began typing it up. As the late. There are 0 customer reviews and 10 customer ratings. He has published eight books of plays and four collections of essays, including essays on Bob Dylan and on environmental issues. They appeared with saxophonist David Sanborn on NBC-TV performing a jazz version of McClures Love Lion Blues. Mystic Fire released a 70-minute video of the duo and a compact disk, Love Lion, followed. He has given readings in venues as varied as the Fillmore Ballroom, Yale, Stanford and The National Biodiversity Conference. Of Indigo and Saffron: Selected and New Poems (University of California Press). ). SoundCloud and A powerful collection of new work written during the last years of McClure's life, Mule Kick Blues was readied for publication before the poet's death in May 2020. He had long hair, and I had long hair. The San Francisco. McClure famously read selections of his Ghost Tantra poetry series to the caged lions in the San Francisco Zoo. He has also written a book of essays called.