Michael McClure


CAMEO T H R E E

M
E
A
 T.
PLAIN RED MEAT
is a forest of moving
GIANTS
and proportionless bay trees
are realms
of ungathered
universes.
Echoing voices
of
hunters
reflect from a wall
of stars
and
I
do not know
to be afraid.
STILL
TOO
YOUNG
among withering
wrinkles.


CAMEO F O U R


ALIGNED
to the flash of no matter.
A HANDFUL
OF MYRIADNESS
is the taste
of flesh
in a soup
or
a
KISS.
FINGERS SMELL
of the meal
long after
it
is
eaten,
and microtubules
of neurons
visit graves
of Schubert
and sparrows buried
in childhood.

--NO
NAME
FITS!



Michael McClure has a history that would require an entire issue of Otoliths to do it justice. So, briefly.....

At the age of 22 he gave his first poetry reading at the legendary Six Gallery event in San Francisco, where Allen Ginsberg first read Howl. He is featured in several films among them Scorcese’s Last Waltz, Norman Mailer’s Beyond the Law and he does a cameo in Peter Fonda’s Hired Hand.

He has made two television documentaries, has fourteen books of poetry out there including Jaguar Skies, Dark Brown, Huge Dreams, Rebel Lions, Rain Mirror and Plum Stones, has published eight books of plays and four collections of essays. His songs include “Mercedes Benz,” popularized by Janis Joplin. His novels are The Mad Cub and The Adept.

He has received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Felowship, an Obie Award for Best Play (for The Beard), an NEA grant, the Alfred Jarry Award, and a Rockefeller grant for playwriting.

Michael lives in the San Francisco Bay Area hills with his wife, the sculptor Amy Evans McClure.


 
 
 
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