A landmark work of bio-romanticism, Mephistos and Other Poems is the first completely new collection in five years from legendary Beat and SF Renaissance poet Michael McClure, reflecting his interests in mammal consciousness and ecological survival. The title sequence stems from McClure''s ongoing grafting experiment, growing new poems from fragments of previously ones. Some Fringes is a series of haiku-like nature poems, while the seventeen-part Rose Breaths derives from the poet''s practice of meditation. The freestanding poems grouped under the title Being pay homage to many of McClure''s collaborators and fellow travelers like Bruce Conner, Terry Riley, and Dave Haselwood. The book climaxes with Song Heavy, recounting McClure''s recent encounter with a beached whale in Rockport, Massachusetts, and recalling his classic For the Death of 100 Whales, which he read at the Six Gallery in 1955—the inaugural moment of American eco-poetics.
Michael McClure is an award-winning American poet, playwright, songwriter, and novelist. After moving from Kansas to San Francisco as a young man, he was one of the five poets who participated in the Six Gallery reading that featured the public debut of Allen Ginsberg''s landmark poem Howl. A key figure of the Beat Generation, McClure is immortalized as Pat McLear in Jack Kerouac''s novels The Dharma Bums and Big Sur. He also participated in the sixties counterculture alongside musicians like Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison. McClure remains active as a poet, essayist, and playwright and lives with his second wife, Amy, in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Michael and I have been twisting the Dharma for twenty years now. He reads his poetry like a mad lion or a hummingbird or a soft evening tidal pool or a wild California thunderstorm. . . . His words are of a new realm of love and joy and terror. What a pleasure to play with such a perceptive artist. It’s always been my great joy to make music to his words.--Ray Manzarek
[C]ertainly a genius in thought and writing it out . . . McClure is one of the few contemporaries to have understood Kerouac as a literary poet—and learned some joyous classic invention therefrom . . . Thus we have a McClure poet, a McClure natural philosopher, and a McClure prosateur and novelist. Hardly anyone in America with equal range and sharpness, liveness. What more?--Allen Ginsberg
Praise for Mephistos:
In Mephistos we are again thrown into Michael McClure''s lavish lair of forceful magic. Its actions are literal ones, handfuls of jewels disintegrate as a firewall rises to a solid prism. There is no poet more adept at calling forth the elements, only to fashion them later as eternal amulets for his readers. ''NEW MOON ((BLACK!)) /STAR CLOUDS/ HALOES/ Flashlight reflects/ into two small eyes.'' You will find your body changed through the labyrinth these poems initiate.--Cedar Sigo
Close attention will be rewarded in kind. Keep Mephisto near at hand, read only a poem or two at a time, let the imagery possess you. It''s okay, you can trust it. It''s McClure: he’ll never steer you wrong.--Robert Hunter, lyricist, poet, songwriter
He is such a sweet paradox!
Like most of Shelley and the late poems of D.H. Lawrence, McClure turns the phenomenal world inside out, seeking Mind within mind.--Diane di Prima, poet
If you’ve enjoyed McClure’s writings in the past, this volume ought to recapture your poetic heart and rekindle your imagination.--Jonah Raskin, New York Journal of Books
Mephistos is perhaps an open love letter to all of McClure’s many fans who have followed him ever since he arrived in San Francisco from Kansas City more than half a century ago.--San Francisco Chronicle
This is poetry for seekers, those interested in developing their inner lives. This is the essence of ''soul-science'' and there is no 20th/21st century poet more adept at this than McClure. ''If poetry and science cannot change one''s life they''re meaningless'' he states in the preface to his book ''Three Poems'' and his spontaneous technique allows him access to realms that can be seen as outside himself, or as the highest aspects of his self, the noble self, noble human life force.—Paul Nelson
"McClure's observations and most importantly his feelings about the universe are uncannily explicit, palpable in their expression. A reading of one or two poems brings you deeper into a sense of being, an exquisite immediacy to everything in you and above you and around you that is so sudden in its effect it's almost startling.”— Tillala Chronicles
PREFACE MEPHISTOS MEPHISTO 1 MEPHISTO 2 MEPHISTO 3 MEPHISTO 4 MEPHISTO 5 MEPHISTO 6 MEPHISTO 7 MEPHISTO 8 MEPHISTO 9 MEPHISTO 10 MEPHISTO 11 MEPHISTO 12 MEPHISTO 13 MEPHISTO 14 MEPHISTO 15 MEPHISTO 16 MEPHISTO 17 MEPHISTO 18 MEPHISTO 19 MEPHISTO 20 MEPHISTO 21 MEPHISTO 22 MEPHISTO 23 MEPHISTO 24 MEPHISTO 25 MEPHISTO 26 MEPHISTO 27 MEPHISTO 28 MEPHISTO 29 MEPHISTO 30 MEPHISTO 31 MEPHISTO 32 MEPHISTO 33 MEPHISTO 34 MEPHISTO 35 MEPHISTO 36 MEPHISTO 37 SOME FRINGES THE MYSTERY OF THE HUNT (MY / MOSS / HEAD) (MY FACE IS) (NEW MOON ((BLACK!))) (gut-) (THE HAPPY / WHITE DOG) (SKY MEAT) (WAVE BOOMS) (WET / BEACH ROCK) (I AM THE FIRELIGHT) (REFINED AS A WILD / BLACKBERRY) (WHITE CHRYSANTHEMUM) (— YULE LOG SHINING) (DRESSED) (GOBBETS OF FOAM RUSH) (DARKNESS —) (In sun) (HAIKU-LIKE) (for Gary) (GRAY SILVERFISH BLUR) (THIS TINY, CURLED) (FEATHER-SCATTER BOUQUET) (THE WING-FACE OF THE LITTLE) (IN SUMMER SOLSTICE) (DEEP IN THE PINK FLOWER’S) (LOVELY ELONGATED LOPING) (BULGING HUMMINGBIRD EYES) (MID-AIR — THE SILVER-GREEN) (THE NEARBY LEMON BLOSSOM) (RAGGED WINGED YOUNG BUTTERFLY) (FREE AS A TIGER TABBY) (SOMETIMES THE CAT PURRING) (PERFECT BLACK SHADOWS) ROSE BREATHS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 BEING THUMBPRINT SESTINA FOR MY LOVER UNDERTOW SKAAGI THE SALMON MOUNT TAMALPAIS POLLOCK’S ECHO ANACREON’S CUPID ANACREON MEETING CUPID SMALL ODE ON THE NEED TO DRINK A BLUE ROSE EPITHALAMION FOR TOM NARCISSUS WAKING UP ALL CHILDREN INTIMATE JOURNALS WET BLACK ROCK WATER IN WATER FRANK AND VIVIANA THE JUDITH POEM COLOR FIELD SONG HEAVY
