MICHAEL McCLURE

October 20, 1932 – May 4, 2020

Another of my great counter culture heroes dies at 87 from complications around a stroke. Michael McClure a great American poet, playwright, songwriter, and novelist. After moving to San Francisco as a young man, he found fame as one of the five poets who read at the famous San Francisco Six Gallery reading in 1955 rendered in barely fictionalized terms in Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums when Ginsberg introduced 'Howl'. Friend of Jim Morrison, Bob Dylan, Alan Ginsberg and fellow ‘beats’ he remained staunchly loyal to San Francisco all his life. He more than perhaps anyone did the most to promote Morrison as a bona fide poet rather than a mere lyricist for a 'rock band'. Perhaps most famous for his extraordinary play 'The Beard', the play proved more successful in the UK than anywhere else perhaps and was performed as recently as 2007 in London but is currently out of print. Centred around a dream in which he imagined Jean Harlow undergoes a boxing match with Billy The Kid (sic!) He wrote the humorous ‘Mercedes Benz’ for Janis Joplin amongst a distinct body of poetic work. He leaves his wife the sculptor Amy Evans McClure and a daughter by his first marriage to Joanna McClure

Dylan's Gang - how cool can you be? The legendary shot by the equally legendary Jim Marshall of i-r Robbie Robertson, Michael, Bob, Allen Ginsburg

the young budding poet

Jim and Michael flipping the bird

with fellow writer another hero Richard Brautigan

too cool for skool

MICHAEL McCLURE