Michael McClure facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Michael McClure
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McClure during the video taping of "Add-Verse", 2004
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| Born | October 20, 1932 Marysville, Kansas, U.S. |
| Died | May 4, 2020 (aged 87) Oakland, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Poet, songwriter, critic, playwright, professor |
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. He soon became a key member of the Beat Generation and was immortalized as Pat McLear in Kerouac's Big Sur.
Career overview
Educated at the Municipal University of Wichita (1951-1953), the University of Arizona (1953-1954) and San Francisco State College (B.A., 1955) McClure's first book of poetry, Passage, was published in 1956 by small press publisher Jonathan Williams.
McClure published eight books of plays and four collections of essays, including essays on Bob Dylan and the environment. His fourteen books of poetry include Jaguar Skies, Dark Brown, Huge Dreams, Rebel Lions, Rain Mirror and Plum Stones. McClure famously read selections of his Ghost Tantra poetry series to the caged lions in the San Francisco Zoo. His work as a novelist includes the autobiographical The Mad Cub and The Adept.
On January 14, 1967, McClure read at the Human Be-In event in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and later became an important member of the 1960s hippie counterculture. Barry Miles referred to him as "the prince of the San Francisco scene".
McClure later caused controversy as a playwright with his play The Beard. 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".
McClure's other plays include Josephine The Mouse Singer and VKTMS. 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. 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).
McClure was a close friend of the Doors' lead singer Jim Morrison and is generally acknowledged as having been responsible for promoting Morrison as a poet. 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. McClure also contributed the afterword to No One Here Gets Out Alive, Jerry Hopkins's and Danny Sugerman's seminal Doors biography. McClure also released albums of his work with minimalist composer Terry Riley. 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.
McClure's journalism has been featured in Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. He 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. In addition, he was inducted into the San Francisco State University Alumni Hall of Fame in 2014. 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. He had one daughter from his first marriage to Joanna McClure.
California College of Arts and Crafts
McClure was a popular, celebrated professor of English at the California College of Arts and Crafts (now renamed California College of the Arts), in Oakland, California, for many years.
Death
McClure died of stroke-related complications on May 4, 2020, in Oakland, aged 87.
Selected filmography
- Two (1965) – as himself
- Be In (1967) – as himself
- Beyond The Law (1968) – as actor
- The Hired Hand (1971) – as actor
- The Last Waltz (1978) – as himself
- The Source (1999) – as himself
- Love Her Madly (2002) – as himself
- The Third Mind (2006) – as himself
- Curses and Sermons (2008) – based on his work
See also
In Spanish: Michael McClure para niños
