Michael McClure is a living legend. One of the poets who participated in the famous Six Gallery reading that featured the public debut of Allen Ginsberg's landmark poem
Howl
, he was immortalized by Jack Kerouac in his novel
Big Sur
. A central figure of the Beat Generation, McClure collaborated with Wallace Berman and Bruce Conner and was later associated with San Francisco's psychedelic counterculture.
Originally self-published in 1964 and long out of print,
Ghost Tantras
is one of McClure's signature works, a book mostly written in "beast language." A mix of lyrical, guttural and laryngeal sound, lion roars and a touch of detonated dada, this is one of his best-known but least available books, a deep well from which decades of poetry have drawn.
McClure's inspiration has always been the animal consciousness that still lives in mankind, and he has had a consistent message: "When a man does not admit that he is an animal, he is less than an animal."
is his original and singular manifesto for a poetry that relies not on images and pictures, but on muscular, sensual, energetic sound.
Praise for Michael McClure:
"Michael McClure shares a place with the great William Blake, with the visionary Shelley, with the passionate D.H. Lawrence."—Robert Creeley
"McClure's poetry is a blob of protoplasmic energy."—Allen Ginsberg
"Without McClure's roar there would have been no Sixties."—Dennis Hopper