Happy 80th Michael McClure
Michael McClure turns 80 today, October 20, 2012. A leading USAmerican poet, playwright, essayist and novelist, he was born in Kansas, but spent some of his formative years in Seattle and is considered a Black Mountain poet, a Beat poet and a poet of the San Francisco Renaissance.
Three Poems Michael McClure
It was not long after I moved to Auburn, Washington, that a new book of his appeared in the mailbox. It was Three Poems. I had no idea at the time that the book would radically affect my life, but I did know that he was someone I wanted to interview. The book was sent to me because I was an interviewer and was on the media lists of publishers. I had interviewed Allen Ginsberg the previous year, 1994, and it might have been the Ray Manzarek connection or the Ginsberg/Beat poet connection that made me say yes to the interview opportunity, but it was set for October 1995.
After agreeing to the interview I went to work on reading it and taking notes. I had just started getting interested in the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead and seeing mentions of Whitehead in Three Poems was a bit of synchronicity. I saw references to Loki, sexuality, memory, regret, drugs, anti-war sentiment, remarkable images from nature, especially the African references, but a very lucid imagery. There was a lot for me to relate to.
1. He discussed his first this particular time in history.
3. When he first realized he was a poet.
6. On what Projective Verse is.
7. Not writing, Typewriting.
8. On the poem Dolphin Skull.
9. On his preferences in Dolphin Skull. If you only listen to one soundbite, it should be this one.
We met at the KZOK studios which were on Queen Anne Hill. I did not know much about poetry, but having held my ground with Ginsberg the previous year, I was willing to continue to to take chances with poets. Afterward, we went to have Vietnamese food at a restaurant at 12th & Jackson and he said it was “on Penguin.” He specifically wanted spring rolls, but not the fried kind. After lunch he told me that if I like what he does it was because I like Projective Verse, his method, and he suggested I get the essay by Charles Olson and read it out loud. (I actually recorded it onto a cassette during my overnight shift at the KPLU studios during jazz records and, when off air, listened to it over and over.)
I helped bring Michael to Auburn in 1996 and again in 2003 and to the new SPLAB in Columbia City in 2010. I was his escort during the Seattle Poetry Festival in (I think) 2000 and we toured one of his boyhood homes in Greenwood. I also set up a reading for him at Doe Bay in October 2010 and heard him tell of a deer eating popcorn out of a bag he was holding while sitting in a car on Orcas Island.
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