Michael McClure was an American poet, playwright, songwriter, and novelist.
23 Facts About Michael McClure
2.
Michael McClure soon became a key member of the Beat Generation and was immortalized as Pat McLear in Kerouac's Big Sur.
3.
Stan Brakhage, a friend of Michael McClure, stated in the Chicago Review that:.
4.
Michael McClure invents a form for the cellular messages of his, a form which will feel as if it were organic on the page; and he sticks with it across his life.
5.
Michael McClure published eight books of plays and four collections of essays, including essays on Bob Dylan and the environment.
6.
Michael McClure famously read selections of his Ghost Tantra poetry series to the caged lions in the San Francisco Zoo.
7.
On January 14,1967, Michael McClure read at the Human Be-In event in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and later became an important member of the 1960s hippie counterculture.
8.
Michael McClure later courted controversy as a playwright with his play The Beard.
9.
Michael McClure's other plays include Josephine The Mouse Singer and VKTMS.
10.
Michael McClure had an eleven-year run as playwright-in-residence with San Francisco's Magic Theatre where his operetta "Minnie Mouse and the Tap-Dancing Buddha" had an extended run.
11.
Michael McClure was a close friend of the Doors' lead singer Jim Morrison and is generally acknowledged as having been responsible for promoting Morrison as a poet.
12.
Michael McClure performed spoken word poetry concerts with Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek until the latter's death in 2013; several albums of their work have been released.
13.
Michael McClure contributed the afterword to No One Here Gets Out Alive, Jerry Hopkins's and Danny Sugerman's seminal Doors biography.
14.
Michael McClure released albums of his work with minimalist composer Terry Riley.
15.
Michael McClure's songs include "Mercedes Benz", popularized by Janis Joplin, and new songs which were performed by Riders on the Storm, a band that consisted of Manzarek and Doors guitarist Robbie Krieger.
16.
Michael McClure's journalism has been featured in Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.
17.
Michael McClure received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Obie Award for Best Play, an NEA grant, the Alfred Jarry Award and a Rockefeller grant for playwriting.
18.
Michael McClure remained active as a poet, essayist and playwright until his death and lived with his second wife, Amy, in the San Francisco Bay Area.
19.
Michael McClure had one daughter from his first marriage to Joanna McClure.
20.
Michael McClure said that he was inspired to write the play by a vision that came to him of a poster advertising a boxing match between Jean Harlow and Billy the Kid.
21.
Michael McClure happened to meet British playwright, Harold Pinter, who then gave words of support to the play, which helped it become noticed and gave courage to those who staged its first production in San Francisco in 1965.
22.
Michael McClure was a popular, celebrated professor of English at the California College of Arts and Crafts, in Oakland, California, for many years.
23.
Michael McClure died of stroke-related complications on May 4,2020, in Oakland, aged 87.