R.I.P. Michael McClure (1932–2020)

We're saddened to learn that poet Michael McClure, founding member of the Beat generation and the San Francisco Renaissance, passed away on Monday at the age of 87. In a San Francisco Chronicle obituary, Sam Whiting reports that close friend Garrett Caples told the paper that McClure "died from the lingering effects of a stroke he suffered in spring 2019." More: 

“Michael was incredibly gracious, erudite, and totally dedicated to the poet’s calling,” said Elaine Katzenberger, publisher of City Lights, which put out McClure’s works going all the way back to 1963’s “Meat Science Essays.” “He was a sometimes-trickster, most definitely a provocateur, and yet, quite solicitous and patient, a sage who was beautiful inside and out.”

That first public reading for McClure, then 22 years old, was overshadowed by the introduction of “Howl,” by Allen Ginsberg. But McClure outlasted all of the Beats in a career that spanned more than 60 years. He published more than 30 books of poetry, plays and anthologies, most recently 2017’s “Persian Pony” and 2016’s “Mephistos and other Poems,” the latter anchored by a poem that took him 16 years to write.

“The poems dive through time and space like dolphins through the waves,” McClure said at the time of publication of “Mephistos,” released by City Lights.

With his cinematic looks and mod three-piece suits, McClure made it onto stages far bigger than those offered at poetry readings. He read at the Human Be-In at Golden Gate Park that launched the Summer of Love in 1967  and at the Band’s “Last Waltz” at Winterland in 1976.

“Without the roar of McClure, there would have been no ’60s,” actor Dennis Hopper once said.

Our hearts go out to McClure's friends and family. McClure wrote of his own friends in mind in "Mexico Seen from the Moving Car," and Caples interviewed McClure for the Poetry Foundation in 2016. Continue reading at San Francisco Chronicle.