Michael McClure

American poet, playwright, songwriter, and novelist

• Born: October 20, 1932
• Birthplace: Marysville, Kansas
• Died:May 4, 2020
• Deathplace:Oakland, California

Other literary forms

Michael McClure was the author of more than twenty plays. A production in New York of The Beard (pr., pb. 1965) won Obie Awards for best play and best director. In 1978, McClure’s Josephine, the Mouse Singer was produced at the WPA Theatre in New York and won the Obie Award for Best Play of the Year.

McClure’s autobiographical novel The Mad Cub (1970) set many of the central themes, moods, and goals for his writing. Meat Science Essays (1963) provided scientific and ecological background for McClure’s other writings. Scratching the Beat Surface (1982) and Lighting the Corners (1993) offered theories of art, memoirs of the Beat generation, and interviews.

McClure’s work as an editor was revealed in Ark II, Moby I (1957) and Journal for the Protection of All Beings (1961). Performances by McClure have been recorded on video in Love Lion (1991) and in the audio recording Howls, Raps, and Roars (1993). He was also seen in the film The Source (2000). Throughout his career, McClure collaborated with musicians, performing his spoken poetry with jazz accompaniment. During the 2000s, McClure collaborated with musicians such as Ray Manzarek, the keyboardist from the rock group the Doors, to release several videos and albums that included sound and spoken word. The Piano Poems: Live from San Francisco, was released in 2012.

Achievements

Michael McClure was committed to full and open exploration of consciousness, perception, sexual fulfillment, and artistic action. To this end, McClure pursued an interdisciplinary approach to his work. He argued against environmental destruction and sought to protect and enhance the planet. In all, he stood as a positive and unifying force in art, science, literature, and ecology. Often published through small presses dedicated to artistry in the making of books, his work reflected a combination of spontaneous creativity and enduring, specialized publication.

McClure was the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation, and won the Alfred Jarry Award (1973), several Obie Awards for his theater work, and a Pushcart Prize (1991). The National Poetry Association honored McClure for distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry in 1993, and he received the Northern California Book Award in poetry in 1999 for Touching the Edge. In 2005, he received an honorary doctorate from the California College of the Arts where he taught for more than forty years.

Biography

Michael Thomas McClure was born to Thomas and Marian Dixie Johnston McClure in Marysville, Kansas, and he soon gained a sense of the immensity of the plains. Following the divorce of his parents, he lived in Seattle, Washington, with his maternal grandfather, whose interests included medicine, ornithology, and horticulture. In Seattle, the rich forests and stunning beaches excited McClure’s young imagination. At age twelve, McClure returned to Kansas, where he lived with his mother and her new husband.

In high school, McClure and his friend Bruce Conner developed an interest in abstract expressionist painters, including Clyfford Still, Mark Rothko, and Jackson Pollock. As a writer, McClure pursued traditional forms and patterns, composing a collection of villanelles as his project for a creative writing course at Wichita University. At the University of Arizona, he studied anthropology and painting, but after meeting Joanna Kinnison, McClure fell in love, married, and traveled with her to San Francisco. Though disappointed not to find Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still teaching in San Francisco, McClure took delight in the Bay Area’s natural splendor. After meeting the poet Robert Duncan, McClure reaffirmed his focus on poetry, exploring the tension between Duncan’s advice to experiment and McClure’s own need to work with traditional forms.

In 1956, McClure’s first publication of his poems—two villanelles dedicated to Theodore Roethke—appeared in Poetry. In the same year, McClure coedited Ark II, Moby I, in which he brought together San Francisco writers with Black Mountain writers, including Charles Olson and Robert Creeley. The maturation of McClure’s poetics followed, in large part, from an extended correspondence with Olson. In 1956, Passage, McClure’s first book of poetry, was published.

A production of McClure’s play The Beard was offered at the Actor’s Workshop in San Francisco in 1965; the play’s sexual frankness resulted in the arrest of several of the actors and producers. With support from the American Civil Liberties Union, The Beard survived efforts to stifle its production.

With these varied accomplishments behind him, McClure settled into a diverse and prolific artistic career. He was an avant-garde figure whose participation in and commentaries about spontaneity, music, art, and the environment were central to understanding his artistic generation. In addition to sustaining academic positions or fellowships at institutions such as the California College of Arts and Crafts (Oakland), State University of New York, Buffalo, and Yale University’s Pierson College, he edited literary and ecology journals, lectured widely, and continued to publish into the early twenty-first century.

In 2002, McClure published a collection of Zen poetry Plum Stones: Cartoons of No Heaven. In 2017, McClure published a new collection of poems, Persian Pony, that conflated metaphysics and science. The book also included poetic homages to friends. McClure died on May 6, 2020, at the age of eighty-seven.

Analysis

Michael McClure’s first published poems were two villanelles dedicated to Theodore Roethke published in the January, 1956, issue of Poetry. The works revealed McClure grounded in the requirements of the villanelle, but in “Premonition,” he expressed his need to soar and fly. “Beginning in the heart,” writes McClure, “I work towards light.” He insists, “My eyes are spiralled up”; he adds, “Feet burn to walk the mackerel sky at night,” and “Ears are aching for the Great Bird’s bite.” Nevertheless, the poem concludes with the idea that McClure’s earthly “skin and wingless skull . . . grow tight.” He longs for ascent, but his longing is not yet fulfilled.

The second villanelle reinforces and intensifies the sense of confinement and limitation. McClure is mindful of “Elysium” but finds that it “is dwindled.” His body is likened to a “corpse,” his hands are his “defeat,” and his eyes are “dumb.” The “ouzel” (a thrush) and the“undine” (a water spirit) represent the loftiness that McClure longs for, but the poem declares that they are “past and future sense, not circumstance.” In these poems, McClure reveals the heavy thought and meticulous craftsmanship of Roethke, but McClure outlines the aim at transcendence that marks all his subsequent writings.

The historic second issue of Evergreen Review includes poems also found in Passage and Hymns to St. Geryon, and Other Poems. “Night Words: The Ravishing” expresses calm and satisfaction as McClure declares, “How beautiful things are in a beautiful room.” He enjoys “ambrosial insomnia,” finds that the “room is softened,” and repeatedly states pleasure about the fact that the features of the room are “without proportion.”

“The Rug”

In “The Rug,” McClure draws a contrast between experience and the poem as a record of the experience. Describing intimacy, McClure writes, “I put my hands// to you—like cool jazz coming.” Yet even in the act of describing the intimacy, words are insufficient, and McClure insists, “THIS IS NOT IT.” The poem may be colorful and elegant but ultimately “is failure, no trick, no end/ but speech for those who’ll listen.” Nevertheless, the insufficiency of language does not prevent experience from rising to special excitement.

“The Robe”

In “The Robe,” McClure returns to the subject of intimacy, telling his lover that they “float about each other—// bare feet not touching the floor.” McClure writes, “Aloof as miracles. Hearing/ jazz in the air. We are passing—//our shapes like nasturtiums.” Although “HEROIC ACTS/ won’t free” the lovers, they do find blissful sleep. The poems in this issue of Evergreen Review present McClure alongside Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and other major writers of the so-called San Francisco scene, marking McClure as a major contributor to the San Francisco poetry renaissance.

“Hymn to St. Geryon, I”

Donald Allen’s The New American Poetry, 1945-1960 (1960) presents poems from Hymns to St. Geryon, and Other Poems and For Artaud and places McClure in the context of a broad national awakening in poetry marked by multiple and interacting schools of poetry. The poems in the anthology fully demonstrate McClure’s attempt to liberate himself and the form of poetry through experimentation in language and sensory experience. The lines are not aligned but are freely distributed on the page. Rhyme and metrics have no place in the record of the action of the mind and body.

“Hymn to St. Geryon, I” is a statement of poetic philosophy and method. At the outset, McClure cites abstract expressionist Clyfford Still, who commits himself to “an unqualified act” and states, “Demands for communication are presumptuous and irrelevant.” McClure insists, “But the thing I say!! Is to see.” He wants to turn “THE GESTURE” into “fists” so that he can “hit with the thing” and “make a robe of it/ TO WEAR” and thereby “clothe” him and his readers “in the action.” McClure asserts, “I am the body, the animal, the poem/ is a gesture of mine.”

“Peyote Poem, Part I”

In “Peyote Poem, Part I,” McClure explores hallucinogenic experience, aware that he and his belly “are two individuals/ joined together/ in life.” His mind rides high “on a mesa of time and space,” yet his body exerts its authority with “STOMACHE.” The effect of the peyote is intense, but McClure is calm in his intensity, saying, “I smile to myself. I know/ all that there is to know. I see all there/ is to feel.” In sum, peyote provides a transcendent experience.

“For Artaud”

Like “Peyote Poem,” “For Artaud” describes the effects of hallucinogens, including heroin and peyote. McClure writes, “I am free and open from the blackness.” He asks, “Let me feel great pain and strength of suffering.” In the spirit of French writer Antonin Artaud, McClure seeks heightened awareness through derangement of his ordinary sensory impressions.

Selected Poems

In 1986, McClure published Selected Poems, which gathered material from nine of his previous books. From The New Book/A Book of Torture, McClure selects “Ode to Jackson Pollock,” a tribute to the abstract expressionist who rendered “the lovely shape of chaos,” found “the secret/ spread in clouds of color,” and pressed experience through himself “onto the canvas.” From “Little Odes” and “The Raptors” appears “Hummingbird Ode,” in which McClure addresses a dead hummingbird. McClure speaks to this “spike of desire” that met its end by smashing into a plate-glass window. McClure asks the hummingbird, “WHAT’S/ ON YOUR SIDE OF THE VEIL??/ DO YOU DIP YOUR BEAK/ in the vast black lily/ of space?”

From Star, McClure selected “The Surge,” an exclamatory poem that McClure, in a prefatory note, describes as “the failure of an attempt to write a beautiful poem.” McClure insists that there is “a more total view!” asserting, “The Surge of Life may not be seen by male or female/ for both are halves.” He asks, “Is all life a vast chromosome stretched in Time?” From September Blackberries, McClure includes “Gray Fox at Solstice,” a poem in honor of the fox that savors “the beat of starlight/ on his brow, and ocean/ on his eardrums.” At home in his “garden,” the fox “dance-runs through/ the Indian paintbrush.” A similar appreciation of wildlife occurs in “To a Golden Lion Marmoset,” which is selected from Jaguar Skies. The animal is an endangered species, and McClure declares, “Your life is all I find/ to prove ours are worthwhile.”

A selection from the long poem “Rare Angel” (1974) concludes Selected Poems. This poem “tracks vertically on the page” and seeks “luck—swinging out in every direction.” Testing the limits of perception, consciousness, and reality, McClure writes, “We swirl out what we are and watch for its return.”

McClure notes that he does not include any sampling of Ghost Tantras in Selected Poems because “beast language” does not coordinate with his other verse. Ghost Tantras is dominated by phrases such as “GOOOOOOR! GOOOOOOOOOO!” mixed with a few intelligible phrases, creating poetry based on sound rather than meaning, aiming at “the Human Spirit & all Mammals.”

Later poems

McClure’s later poetry looked to both the past and present. Huge Dreams regathers the work of the early Beat period, and Three Poems presents anew "Rare Angel" and “Dark Brown,” McClure’s long and boldly erotic “ROMANTIC CRY.” New in Three Poems is “Dolphin Skull,” a long poem revealing subconscious and conscious artistic production. McClure writes, “Never say: Hold, let this moment never cease,” then reverses himself, declaring, “HOLD, LET THIS MOMENT never cease. Drag it out/ of context look at the roots of it in quarks/ and primal hydrogen. It’s the sound/ of Shelley’s laugh in my ears.” Both Rain Mirror and Touching the Edge are intended as vertical poems that scroll down. In Rain Mirror, the first series of poems is titled “Haiku Edge,” and McClure writes, “HEY, IT’S ALL CON/ SCIOUSNESS—thumps/of assault/ rifles/ and/ the/ stars,” pitting “con” against “consciousness” and violence against nature’s serenity. The haiku often focus on such dualities. The second series of poems is “Crisis Blossoms,” a sequence of “graftings.” The poet explores memories and contemplates death: “BYE/ BYE/ SWEET/ OLD/ STORY/ HELLO/ FUTURE/ MAYBE/ UH/ WITH/ GHOST SMILE.” Touching the Edge is a set of dharma devotions divided into three sequences: “RICE ROARING,” “OVAL MUDRA,” and “WET PLANK.” McClure asks to be “cheerful/ and modest” as he reflects on the diversity around him, noticing not only fruit, flowers, and wildlife, but also chain saws, airplanes, and asphalt. He is calmly aware of both destruction and creation, and ultimately concludes that these forces are one and the same.

Author Works

Drama

The Beard, "pr., pb." 1965

The Blossom: Or, Billy the Kid, 1967

The Growl, pr. 1971

Gargoyle Cartoons: Or the Charbroiled Chinchilla, 1971

The Mammals, 1972

Gorf: A Play, 1976

The Grabbing of the Fairy, 1978

Minnie Mouse and the Tap-Dancing Buddha, pr. 1978

Josephine, the Mouse Singer, pr. "1978, pb. 1980"

Edited Text(s)

Ark II, Moby I, 1957 (with James Harmon)

Journal for the Protection of All Beings, 1961

Long Fiction

The Mad Cub, 1970

The Adept: A Novel, 1971

Nonfiction

Meat Science Essays, 1963

Scratching the Beat Surface, 1982

Lighting the Corners, 1993

A Fierce God and a Fierce War: An Interview with Michael McClure, 2007 (with Rod Phillips)

Poetry

Passage, 1956

Peyote Poem, 1958

For Artaud, 1959

Hymns to St. Geryon, and Other Poems, 1959

Dark Brown, 1961

The New Book/A Book of Torture, 1961

Ghost Tantras, 1964

Thirteen Mad Sonnets, 1964

Two for Bruce Conner, 1964

Dream Table, 1965

Mandalas, 1965

Poisoned Wheat, 1965

Unto Caesar, 1965

Love Lion Book, 1966

The Sermons of Jean Harlow and the Curses of Billy the Kid, 1968

"Little Odes," and "The Raptors", 1969

Hymns to St. Geryon/Dark Brown, 1969

The Surge, 1969

Star, 1970

Muscled Apple Swift, 1970

Solstice Blossom, 1973

The Book of Joanna, 1973

A Fist Full, 1956-1957, 1974

An Organism, 1974

Fleas 189-195, 1974

Hail Thee Who Play, "1968, revised 1974"

Rare Angel (writ with raven's blood), 1974

September Blackberries, 1974

Jaguar Skies, 1975

Man of Moderation, 1975

Antechamber, and Other Poems, 1978

Fragments of Perseus, 1983

Specks, 1985

Selected Poems, 1986

Freewheelin' Frank, 1986

Rebel Lions, 1991

Simple Eyes, and Other Poems, 1994

Three Poems: "Dolphin Skull," "Rare Angel," and "Dark Brown", 1995

Huge Dreams, 1999

Rain Mirror: New Poems, 1999

Touching the Edge: Dharma Devotions from the Hummingbird Sangha, 1999

The Masked Choir: A Masque in the Shape of an Enquiry into the Treena and Sheena Myth, 2000

Plum Stones: Cartoons of No Heaven, 2002

Mysteriosos, and Other Poems, 2010

Of Indigo and Saffron: New and Selected Poems, 2011

Mephistos and Other Poems, 2016

Persian Pony, 2017

Miscellaneous (albums, videos)

Love Lion (with Ray Manzarek), 1991

The Third Mind (with Ray Manzarek), 2000

There's Word (with Ray Manzarek), 2001

I Like Your Eyes, Liberty (with Terry Riley), 2005

Bibliography

Genzlinger, Neil. "Michael McClure, Present at Beat Poetry's Birth, Dies at 87." The New York Times, 6 May 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/05/06/books/michael-mcclure-dead.html. Accessed 12 Nov. 2020.

Jacob, John, ed. “Symposium on Michael McClure.” Margins 18 (1975). This special issue is entirely devoted to analysis and discussion of McClure.

Lawlor, William T. Beat Culture: Lifestyles, Icons, and Impact. ABC-CLIO, 2005. In-depth information about the Beat culture and its history, including the poetry of Michael McClure and the San Francisco culture of the 1960s.

McClure, Michael. "Exclusive: Beat Poet Michael McClure on Jim Morrison, The Doors, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac." Interview by Anis Shivani. HuffPost, 6 Dec. 2017, www.huffingtonpost.com/anis-shivani/exclusive-beat-poet-mcclure‗b‗823425.html. Accessed 20 Dec. 2017. Poet Michael McClure discusses creativity and influences on his poetics.

Pekar, Harvey, et al. The Beats: A Graphic History. Art by Ed Piskor et al. New York: Hill and Wang, 2009. Comic legend Harvey Pekar provides a history of the Beat poets in this graphic book. Contains an entry on and references to McClure.

Phillips, Rod. “Let Us Throw Out the Word Man: Michael McClure’s Mammalian Poetics.” In“Forest Beatniks” and “Urban Thoreaus”: Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, Lew Welch, and Michael McClure. New York: Peter Lang, 2000. Philips emphasizes McClure’s fascination with nature and his combining of poetry with ideas in biology and ecology.

Phillips, Rod. Michael McClure. Boise, Idaho: Boise State University Press, 2003. A biography of McClure that looks at his place in the Beat generation and in the poetry scene in California.

Stephenson, Gregory. “From the Substrate: Notes on the Work of Michael McClure.” In The Daybreak Boys: Essays on the Literature of the Beat Generation. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1990. Stephenson provides a clear and thorough survey of McClure’s writings, appreciating McClure’s effort to heal humankind, to reconcile body and spirit, and to develop harmonious coexistence with the environment.

Thurley, Geoffrey. “The Development of the New Language: Michael McClure, Philip Whalen, and Gregory Corso.” In The Beats: Essays in Criticism, edited by Lee Bartlett. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1981. Thurley examines McClure as a poet experimenting with hallucinogens, especially in “Peyote Poem,” but expresses reservations about the validity of McClure’s triumphs in perception while under the influence of narcotic substances.

Watson, Steven. “Michael McClure.” In The Birth of the Beat Generation. New York: Pantheon, 1995. Watson provides a sketch of McClure’s youth, education, and career, with recognition for McClure’s interdisciplinary role among the Beats and his dedication to science and the environment.