Famed San Francisco Beat Poet Michael McClure Dies At Age 87
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Michael McClure, one of the famed Beat poets of San Francisco whose career as a poet eclipsed many others in popular culture, has died. He was 87.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that McClure died Tuesday in Oakland, California, after suffering a stroke last year.
A then 22-year-old McClure helped organize the famous Six Gallery beat poetry reading on Oct. 7, 1955, and later 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" concert at Winterland in 1976.
"Without the roar of McClure, there would have been no '60s," actor Dennis Hopper once said.
McClure would be credited as the co-writer to "Mercedes Benz," the a cappella tune that Janis Joplin recorded three days before her death which would appear on her posthumously released album "Pearl." McClure has been quoted as saying that royalties from that song would allow him to buy a home in the Oakland hills.
In McClure's 1982 nonfiction account of the Six Gallery reading, "Scratching the Surface of the Beats," he set the stage for the revolution that was to follow in the mid-1950s:
"The world that we tremblingly stepped out into in that decade was a bitter, gray one," he wrote. "We saw that the art of poetry was essentially dead — killed by war, by academies, by neglect, by lack of love, and by disinterest. We knew we could bring it back to life."
His first reading in 1955 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, publishing more than 30 books of poetry, plays and anthologies until 2017. He toured the United States, Mexico and Japan with Ray Manzarek of the Doors. He also was a professor of poetry at California College of the Arts for 43 years.
"Michael was incredibly gracious, erudite, and totally dedicated to the poet's calling," said Elaine Katzenberger, publisher of City Lights, which published McClure's works dating to 1963. "He was a sometimes-trickster, most definitely a provocateur, and yet, quite solicitous and patient, a sage who was beautiful inside and out."