The Challenge of Editing a Beat Legend

April 19, 2021

by Ryukan

A wonderful look at the working style of one of SPLAB’s poetry heroes, Michael McClure, as described by his last editor Garrett Caples. To hear about the project on which they collaborated, dig this:

Mule Kick Blues Book Release with Anne Waldman, Eileen Myles, and Garrett Caples

Event will be held on Zoom. Click the link in the event description for info.,

Saturday, May 8th, 3:00 p.m. PT / 6:00 p.m. ET

Michael McClure Mule Kick Blues Launch Photo

The following day your humble narrator will be part of:

Michael McClure Memorial Tribute

Event will be held on Zoom. Click the link in the event description for info., Sunday, May 9th, 3:00 p.m. PT / 6:00 p.m. ET

A memorial tribute to

Michael McClure

with readings and remembrances by

Russ Tamblyn, CAConrad, Margaret Randall, Forrest Gander, George Herms, Jerome Rothenberg, Cedar Sigo, Paul Nelson, Lyn Hejinian, Andrew Schelling, Amy McClure, Jane McClure, and Joanna McClure.

This is a virtual event that will be hosted by City Lights on the Zoom platform. You will need access to a computer or other device that is capable of accessing the internet. If you have not used Zoom before, you may consider referencing Getting Started with Zoom.

———-

Event is free, but registration is required.

(Click Here) to register.

To Garrett’s article:

I’ve been an editor at City Lights for a dozen years, during which time I’ve worked with some Beat Generation greats: David Meltzer, Diane di Prima, Joanne Kyger. As a poet myself, I’ve considered it an education to watch such poets be poets as we worked on their manuscripts and they made demands about their presentation on the page. And so it happened with Michael McClure. I’d met Michael here and there, but I began to know him in 2013 when City Lights republished his revolutionary volume of “beast language” poetry, Ghost Tantras (1964). It wasn’t my project, editorially, but I used it as an excuse to interview him for the alt-weekly San Francisco Bay Guardian. READ MORE

Hear Michael McClure being interviewed in 1995.

The 15th year of the Poetry Postcard Fest is dedicated to the memory of Michael McClure and Diane di Prima. See: www.popo.cards or register at www.popo.submittable com

See also our online poetry postcard fest exhibit: https://www.poetrypostcardfestexhibit.org/

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