Actors were sometimes arrested, along with the occasional director or producer. Michael McClure reads a brief excerpt from Geoffrey Chaucer's General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales. Michael McClure died from complications following a stroke last year, so it does not appear that his death was caused by coronavirus, but I do wish to know what he thought about the current pandemic, since his entire poetic career was suffused with awareness of the power of the wide natural world. 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. Michael McClure Poems 1. Beat Generation poet Michael McClure dies - Las Vegas Review-Journal Peter Fonda). 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. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Even in the semi-darkness the softness of their brown feathers made curls pliant as a young mother's hair. Obviously, its impossible to know how his legacy will be viewed in the fullness of time, but its equally obvious the story of 20th Century American poetry cannot be told without him. Michael McClure on his 25th volume of poetry and more. His mammalism, moreover, entails a clear rejection of anthrocentrism, as Gary Snyder said during our phone call. 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". Intimacies! Beat poet Michael McClure, RIP | Boing Boing Obituary Note: Michael McClure | Shelf Awareness Finding aid to Michael McClure papers at Columbia University. Dennis Hopper, Michael McClures poetry and prose is one of the more remarkable achievements in recent American literature. McClure famously read selections of his Ghost Tantra poetry series to the caged lions in the San Francisco Zoo. Genres: Beat Poetry. A full body orgasm at the L.A. Phil? Five days later, the city of Berkeley brought its own charges of "lewd or dissolute conduct" against the play. His play The Beard provoked numerous censorship battles in Los Angeles; the cast was arrested after each performance for fourteen nights in a row. McClure has made two television documentaries The Maze and September Blackberries. ${cardName} not available for the seller you chose. He soon became a key member of the Beat Generation and is immortalized as "Pat McLear" in Kerouac's Big Sur. GONE in the hole where soul swells into nothing leaving solid space where profiles of gods and fairies are carved and finely polished by the clanking of trucks, thunder-shaking waves, and the taste of mangos. He was 87. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Michael_McClure&oldid=1152187161, This page was last edited on 28 April 2023, at 18:49. The birthplaceof Brahms. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. The roomsnot important but like divisions of all spaceof all hideousness and beauty. A Buddhist, McClure experimented with poems that were self-conscious of the form itself. 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. McClure's songs include "Mercedes Benz", popularized by Janis Joplin, and new songs which were performed by Riders on the Storm, a band that consisted of Manzarek and Doors guitarist Robbie Krieger. I am separate from gloom and beauty. [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. Amazon has encountered an error. He stood on one leg in the setting sun by the sparkling stream that cut across the meadow to the bridge. About Michael McClure Ferlinghetti added that McClures death was such a surprise because I always thought of him as being so young. Ferlinghetti, the poet and co-founder of City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, turned 101 in March. McClure is still active as a poet, essayist and playwright and lives with his second wife, Amy, in the San Francisco Bay Area. 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. I know all that there is to know. He is the co-author of the song Mercedes Benz and often performs with musicians, notably Ray Manzarek and Terry Riley. There is no Time!No answers. Twitter, This might go on forever. 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. McClure's plays and musicals are performed in the U.S. and abroad. His work as a novelist includes the autobiographical The Mad Cub and The Adept. The pain is many pointed, without anguish. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. Death Poems II by Michael McClure - Poems | Academy of American Poets Oh Lord, wont you buy me a Mercedes-Benz, the memorable lyrics, credited to all three, begin. 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. Request a transcript here. 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. He had one daughter from his first marriage to Joanna McClure. McClure published eight books of plays and four collections of essays, including essays on Bob Dylan and the environment.