Hugo House Eastside Course at Park Place Books, Jan 23 – Feb 26, 2007

Organic Poetry Course Outline

Week V: The Pinnacle of Projection, Michael McClure.

1)      Madlib V

2)      Thoughts after week four.

3)      Michael McClure

a)      Born October 20, 1932 in Marysville, Kansas, but grew up in Seattle near 85^th and Greenlake where he was fascinated by nature and saw himself becoming a natural scientist. He went to San Francisco as a young man, participated in a poetry workshop with Robert Duncan, and got involved in the Beat literary movement and San Francisco Poetry Renaissance. Read at the famous Six Gallery reading where Allen Ginsberg first read Howl in public. In an interview with Jack Foley, Jack asked Michael: “You said at one point that the poem which first gave you a proper sense of yourself was the one you read at the Six Gallery in 1955: For the Death of 100 Whales.” MM: “The poem was my anger against an Icelandic NATO airbase G.I.’s machine gunning whales from power boats. It lifted me from concern that the poem should be a ballad into its being projective verse--and that may have had a lot to do with who I am artistically. Certainly I was enraged and projective verse outlined the energy of the anger.” Read the poem.

b)      Levi Asher on his Literary Kicks website says: “McClure's special interest is in the animal consciousness that too often lies dormant in mankind. He has a consistent message: ‘When a man does not admit that he is an animal, he is less than an animal. Not more but less.’" Another reviewer said: “Perhaps the central tenet underlying McClure's poetry is the link it attempts to forge between the physical and the visionary. McClure's writings possess an almost feverish, mystical quality, crying out against rational constraints on the imagination; it recalls the work of Blake, Shelley, Artaud and many of the other writers who were an early inspiration to his poems.” Read Action Philosophy from Fragments of Perseus, A Breath and For Joanna from jaguar skies, and segment from Rebel Lions introduction on Centering text.

c)      Writing Exercise. Duo Corpse.

d)      Author of two novels, several plays and at least 16 volumes of poetry. He’s said that the Beat Generation is the Literary Wing of the Environmental movement. Use of Beast Language and “talking” to lions in the zoo. Blurb from Frances Crick, co-discoverer of the double helix, human DNA molecule. Read Cowboy and Madame Secretary.

4)      Writing Exercise Two – Homophonic Translation.

5)      Read from introduction to Three Poems. Play segment of Dolphin Skull from CD.

6)      Writing Exercise Three – (Homework. Find a line of poetry, use that as the first line of a poem you create or no less than 14 lines. Try to listen to the words as they come, don’t judge them, and try to use the page as a score for the voice you are hearing.)

7)      Read poems from Touching The Edge, written from his meditation practice.