CLASSIFICATION
Swallow ID:
1271
Partner Institution:
Concordia University
Source Collection Label:
SGWU Reading Series-Concordia University Department of English fonds
Series:
The Poetry Series
Sub Series:
SGWU Reading Series-Concordia University Department of English fonds
ITEM DESCRIPTION
Title:
Michael McClure and George Montana at Sir George Williams University, The Poetry Series, 22 March 1968
Title Source:
Cataloguer
Title Note:
"MICHAEL McCLURE I006/SR160" written on sticker on the spine of the tape's box. "I006-11-160" written on sticker on the reel
Language:
English
Production Context:
Documentary recording
Genre:
Reading: Poetry
Identifiers:
[]
Rights
CREATORS
Name:
McClure, Michael
Dates:
1932-
Role:
"Author",
"Performer"
Notes:
American poet, playwright, essayist, novelist and teacher Michael McClure was born on October 20, 1932 in Marysville, Kansas. After his parents divorced, he went to live with his grandfather in Seattle, who influenced McClure’s early interests in the natural world. McClure attended several universities in Kansas and Arizona before completing his Bachelor degree at the San Francisco State College in 1955. McClure met his first wife, Joanna Kinnison, and married her in 1954. They later had one daughter, Katherine Jane (b. 1956), but divorced in 1986. While at San Francisco State College, he took a course with poet Robert Duncan, and was influenced by Charles Olson, William Blake and Walt Whitman’s poetries as well as Jackson Pollock’s paintings. McClure received instant fame when he participated in the infamous Six Gallery poetry reading in San Francisco with Allen Ginsberg, Philip Whalen, Gary Snyder and Philip Lamantia. McClure was thus associated with the Beat movement, and began publishing in what became a prolific writing career. In 1956, with poet and publisher Jonathan Williams and James Harmon, McClure published the work of both Black Mountain school poets and San Francisco Beat poets in Ark II/Moby I review; it was published in 1957. Jonathan Williams then published McClure’s first book of poetry, Passage (Jargon Book Series, 1956). McClure subsequently published many collections of poetry, including For Artaud (Totem Press, 1959), Hymns to St. Geryon and Other Poems (Auerhahn Press, 1959), Dark Brown (Auerhahn Press, 1961), The New Book/ A Book of Torture (Grove Press, 1961), Meat Science Essays (City Lights Books, 1963), Love Lion Lioness (Privately printed, 1963), Ghost Tantras (Privately printed, 1964), 13 Mad Sonnets (Privately printed, 1965), The Beard (Several publishers between 1965-7), The Sermons of Jean Harlow and the Curses of Billy the Kid (Four Seasons press, 1968), The Mammals (Cranium Press, 1972), Jaguar Skies (New Directions, 1975), Scratching the Beat Surface (North Point Press, 1982), Selected Poems (New Directions, 1986), and Rebel Lions (New Directions, 1991). McClure also wrote many plays, including !The Feast! (San Francisco, Batman Gallery, 22 December 1960), The Blossom; or Billy the Kid (New York, American Theatre for Poets, 1964), the controversial play The Beard (San Francisco, Encore Theatre, Encore Theare, December 18, 1965), Gorf (San Francisco, Magic Theare,1976) and Josephine the Mouse Singer (New York, WPA Theatre, November 20, 1978), recipient of two Off-Broadway Theatre Awards. In 1963, McClure became a professor at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California, where he taught for more than 40 years, eventually becoming a professor emeritus. McClure was awarded numerous honours, including grants from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1967 and 1974, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1974, a Pushcart Prize for Poetry in 1991 and a Lifetime Achievement Poetry Award from the National Poetry Society in 1993. More recently, McClure published Simple Eyes (New Directions, 1992), Love Lion Video (with Ray Manzarek, Mystic Fire Video, 1993), The Mad Club (Blue Moon Books, 1995), Rain Mirror (New Directions, 1999), There’s a Word! audio recording with Ray Manzarek (Rare Angel Music 2001), and Plum Stones: Cartoons of No Heaven (O Books, 2002). In 1997, McClure married a sculptor, Amy Evans. Michael McClure continues to perform and write from the San Francisco Bay Area
Name:
Montana, George
Role:
"Performer"
CONTRIBUTORS
MATERIAL DESCRIPTION
Recording Type:
Analogue
AV Type:
Audio
Material Designation:
Reel to Reel
Physical Composition:
Magnetic Tape
Storage Capacity:
01:20:00
Extent:
1/4 inch
Playing Speed:
3 3/4 ips
Playback Mode:
Mono
Tape Brand:
Scotch
Sound Quality:
Good
DIGITAL FILE DESCRIPTION
File Path:
files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3
Duration:
01:37:00
Size:
232.8 MB
Content:
Introducer
00:00:00
Ladies and gentlemen, Michael McClure
, George Montana.
Audience
00:00:05
Applause.
Michael McClure
00:00:29
That was [unintelligible]. Star is a four letter word, s-t-a-r. Now, in case I read, I--is this on right? In case I read something here tonight with a four letter word in it, which I'm liable to cause I might start off be reading part of The Beard, um, [unintelligible] if anyone would be offended, it would be a good thing if they got their money back, right now. It's their right to do so.
Audience
00:01:07
Applause.
Michael McClure
00:01:22
The Beard is a poem of mine in the form of a play that's just been arrested fifteen nights in a row by Los Angeles
police and a state law has been passed against it being performed in the state colleges in California
. These are the trials and tribulations. And right now we're waiting for a panel of three federal judges to come and see it and decide if it has redeeming special significance. [Audience laughter]. And if they don't think it is, we'll take it to the Supreme Court
and see what they think. And, the play has two characters in it, Billy the Kid
and Jean Harlow
. And they're together in a blue velvet eternity, they both are wearing little beards made out of torn white tissue paper. They're--they only thing on the set with them is a table and two chairs covered with furs and Harlow is wearing a blue gown and she has a purse with her and a mirror and the Kid is dressed in a costume appropriate to his costume--I mean appropriate to his career. And when the curtain opens, there's an orange light shining on him which goes up after the first, about the first thirty seconds. And being that this is a poem in the form of a play, I can only read it, I can't read it properly, I can't be two people, I can't be Billy the Kid and Jean Harlow I can only be the author so I'll have to read it that way where it's actually meant to be a poem and acted by me on a stage, on a shelf with lights. We have a shelf with lights, but that's the best I can do.
Michael McClure
00:03:41
Reads selection from The Beard.
Audience
00:10:29
Applause.
Michael McClure
00:11:02
Um, I'm going to read two more tonight. I want to read for a while and then have an intermission and then I'd like to come back on and play some musical pieces that my music guru George Montana has been working on with me and we've been writing some songs together, but I'd like to read poems for maybe half an hour or so first. I want to read some poems called "Mad Sonnets" and I imagine a lot of you know what sons are, what known as sons are, fourteen lines with a legitimate rhyme scheme, and these are not quite exactly like that...Does this microphone sound right? If I stand right here is that okay so that I don't have to lean into it?
Michael McClure
00:12:25
Reads "Mad Sonnet" [from Star].
Michael McClure
00:14:08
Another "Mad Sonnet", kind of ecological.
Michael McClure
00:14:23
Reads ["Mad Sonnet 3" from Star].
Michael McClure
00:16:03
Here's a--I live in San Francisco
, but here's a "Mad Sonnet" that I started in New York
, I went to Wall Street
on a Saturday morning, I guess you can imagine what it's like during the weekdays, it's a narrow street, buildings stretching up like cliffs on each side of them and on Saturday morning it's cold and empty and you can feel the crush and vibrations from the previous part of the week.
Michael McClure
00:16:32
Reads [“Mad Sonnet 13” from Star, published later as “Cold Saturday Mad Sonnet” in Selected Poems].
Michael McClure
00:17:58
I never thought of those signs--they told me I can't smoke up here. It's my life. I'll do what I want, [unintelligible]. [Audience laughter]. The work--I think-are we all, I think I'm waiting for, this technology with which we live in, which is wonderful enough in it's own way, is also costly and [unintelligible], eating up the planet, and I think I'm waiting for an all-chemical science, by means in which we can manifest ourselves through the universe and I guess we'll have to tinker toys like rocket ships and space ships to begin it, but I don't think that's how we'll really do it. And it's become kind of tradition to write songs to science, so I guess I had to do one too.
Michael McClure
00:19:20
Reads [“Mad Sonnet 5” from Star].
Michael McClure
00:20:48
I've got a book of poems in a language I call Beast Language, they're about half in English and half in this invented language. The book is called Ghost Tantras, ghost like the German word "gist", g-i-s-t, which means spirit, and I just said "ghost". Why can't ghost be a spirit, why can't we use that in English? And tantra, t-a-n-t-r-a, which is a Hindu form of poetry, it's poetry written in an invented language for magical purposes to bring about changes in the universe. I felt these poems, I felt these poems coming on, and I felt like I had a ball of silence within myself, within my body and I heard these sounds within that ball of silence, and I wrote them down phonetically, so kind of like Marvel comics
, you know where it says "keee" or "rash", k-e-e-e, or r-a-s-h. And I see later that things like this have been done in gnostic Bizantine chants too, which also, is like Marvel comics. "Ka-pow". And some of them were written in San Francisco, some of them were written in airplanes, on the way to Mexico
. I was going to Mexico to bring back cultures of [unintelligible] Mexicana, the sacred [salsavie (?)] mushroom which were grown by scientists in Brooklyn
. And, then upon my return I finished from there. I finished these "Mad Sonnets", there are 99 of them and I don't think you've probably heard anything like them before, and I guess all you can do is just relax. I like to start with one that starts with English because it's not so strange, they're about a third English or half English maybe.
Michael McClure
00:23:15
Begins to perform unnamed sound poem.
Michael McClure
00:23:19
No, that's not it...Where'd George go? George? [Audience laughter].
Michael McClure
00:24:00
Performs “Ghost Tantra #51” [published later in Ghost Tantras].
Michael McClure
00:25:42
Here's another one that starts in English, it starts in Spanish. Just went to Spanish, [unintelligible] George is.
Michael McClure
00:25:57
Performs “Ghost Tantra #54” [published later in Ghost Tantras].
Michael McClure
00:27:45
I just had a lot of microphone trouble in Buffalo
too. I don't know what. It's alright?
Michael McClure
00:27:55
Performs “Ghost Tantra #69” [published later in Ghost Tantras].
Michael McClure
00:29:45
Here's one, this was written the day after Marilyn Monroe
died, August 6, 1962.
Michael McClure
00:30:11
Reads "Ghost Tantra #39" [published later in Ghost Tantras].
Michael McClure
00:31:37
You've got a tourist card in the back of the room [(?)] Is everybody relaxed? Cause I'm not. Eddie in [unintelligible] was dismissed recently and I guess this poem had something to do with it. And, the poem is the ending of, it's the sexual ending of a very long poem called "Dark Brown" I see nothing wrong in taking any sexual part of the poem from any other part of the poem, and the sexual writing today will be viewed in fifty years or a hundred years much the way we view nature poetry today in the 19th century, because some [unintelligible] classes we kept bringing up the fact that for our [unintelligible] today if you were to look at the atmosphere or the air we breathe, the primary part of our environment is either other human bodies or concrete and we choose human bodies rather than the concrete which seems to be a pretty good choice. I think that given the changes that are going on today, I believe we won't be able to say anything. If we can say anything now. If we can say anything anytime but I mean, I think this will be looked upon as [unintelligible] Nature poetry, Shelley
and Keats
were pulling cockney school in their day, which of course was all there is for Shelley since he was a [unintelligible] and probably some of Keats although it was worse since he was a cockney. [Audience laughter]. They were insulted for their new nature poetries, and this too. I'd like to read some like, preliminary stanzas of that poem, and then read part of the longer section which seems to have to do with the [unintelligible]. In Eddie's defense I'll say that the London Times
literary supplement found that this is [unintelligible]. The poem is written in independent stanzas, I'd like to think of the stanzas as being independent in the way an organism is, and the totality of the poem in the totality in a way an--the way a primitive--and this is a primitive organism is comprised of [unintelligible] individuals to make up its [unintelligible] of being. The poem is called "Dark Brown" and I've just opened it to the page I wanted to. The stanza I wanted to.
Michael McClure
00:35:21
Reads "Dark Brown" from Dark Brown.
Michael McClure
00:37:48
Reads ["The black black black damned and undreamy odem the undersoul" from Dark Brown].
Michael McClure
00:40:00
Another poem. Okay, have I justified enough? Now's your chance to go home. I'm going to read the tough part.
Michael McClure
00:40:23
Reads [“Fuck Ode” from Dark Brown].
Audience
00:50:00
Applause.
Michael McClure
00:50:15
I'll take a break. George and I are going to play, George Montana and I, and I won't guarantee anything about it as my fingers are feeling very clumsy tonight. I'll be playing an instrument but I know George will play for us, so if you hear any faults in the playing, it's me not George. I want to take like, at least, I want to take a ten minute break and anybody who'd like to stay is welcome to stay, and if you'd like to go, go, and if you want to leave during the music if you don't like the music for god's sake go. Thank you.
Unknown
00:51:09
[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].
Michael McClure
00:51:12
I'm kind of nervous, us going through it again.
George Montana
00:51:19
[IUnintelligible].
Michael McClure
00:51:23
Sure, let's see if it picks up.
George Montana
00:51:24
I think it's picking up
Michael McClure
00:51:25
Yeah?
George Montana
00:51:26
Yeah.
Michael McClure
00:51:27
Can you hear us whispering?
Audience
00:51:28
Yes.
Unknown
00:51:30
Ambient Sound [music].
Michael McClure
00:51:41
Let's see what it sounds like.
Michael McClure
00:51:43
Is it picking up? Can you hear in the back? Can you hear in the back row? Yeah, I think I lost that pic already. Christ.
Michael McClure and George Montana
00:52:17
Perform unnamed song.
Audience
01:01:41
Applause.
Michael McClure
01:01:56
Um, I don't think I can sing. Do you want to do that one?
George Montana
01:02:00
Ah, okay.
Michael McClure
01:02:04
Shall we tell them it's a new song? Why don't you tell them?
George Montana
01:02:07
This is a song that Michael and I just have done, so I don't know the words by heart yet. So here it is.
Michael McClure
01:02:19
And I haven't learned this melody very well yet. Let's get coordinated together. You set the [unintelligible]. You wanna sing it through three times?
Unknown
01:02:41
Ambient Sound [voices].
Michael McClure
01:02:57
Is this picking up alright? Can you hear it clear, loud enough? No? [Audience laughter]. Get out. [Audience laughter].
Michael McClure and George Montana
01:03:24
Perform unnamed song.
Audience
01:10:50
Applause.
Unknown
01:10:59
Ambient Sound [voices].
Michael McClure
01:11:39
These are called technical difficulties. By the way we can smoke on the stage now because the lights are off in the auditorium. That's the fire alarm. [Audience laughter].
Want to play the “Bells of Moscow”?
George Montana
01:12:22
How about the other [unintelligible].
Michael McClure
01:12:31
I don't think I'm up to...
George Montana
01:12:40
We're going to try to do the Allen Ginsberg
"For President Walt".
Michael McClure
01:12:43
I think I'm too scared to. We'll try it. I might be too--can you hear alright? I might be too scared. This isn't very complicated, isn't it a two chord one?
Michael McClure and George Montana
01:13:04
Perform "For President Walt" by Allen Ginsberg.
Michael McClure
01:13:20
I can't remember the words.
Michael McClure and George Montana
01:13:31
Perform "For President Walt" by Allen Ginsberg.
Audience
01:16:29
Applause.
Unknown
01:16:39
Ambient Sound [voices].
Michael McClure
01:16:45
I was just thinking you'd play it your way fast. No, let's do a non-vocal.
George Montana
01:17:03
Okay, which one.
Michael McClure
01:17:05
What about "The Bells of Moscow"?
George Montana
01:17:06
That one?
Unknown
01:17:11
Ambient Sound [voices].
George Montana
01:17:15
We'll play for you a little instrumental one it's called "The Bells of Moscow".
Michael McClure
01:17:20
Named today.
Michael McClure and George Montana
01:17:56
Perform "The Bells of Moscow".
Audience
01:23:06
Applause.
Michael McClure
01:23:17
I don't think that was picking up here. Alright. Or I was too close. More music lovers are leaving. I don't know, we could try the [unintelligible] thing.
Unknown
01:23:40
Ambient Sound [voices].
Michael McClure
01:24:12
George and I usually do this in my front room. With no light but a candle and the incense, but we can smoke there of course. This is a song by William Blake
.
Michael McClure and George Montana
01:24:59
Perform "How sweet I roam’d from field to field"
by William Blake.
Audience
01:30:25
Applause.
Michael McClure
01:30:46
How about, um, Dvořák’s
43rd auto-harp duet? Which one is that?
Michael McClure and George Montana
01:31:44
Begin to perform unnamed song.
Michael McClure and George Montana
01:31:58
Perform unnamed song.
Audience
01:35:52
Applause.
Unknown
01:35:57
Ambient Sound [voices].
Michael McClure
01:36:12
Good night.
Audience
01:36:28
Applause.
END
01:37:00
Notes:
Michael McClure reads poems collected in The Beards (Coyote, 1967), Star (Grove Press, 1970), Ghost Tantras (Four Seasons, 1969), and Dark Brown (Dave Haselwood Books, 1967). McClure also performs a number of songs with George Montana.
00:00- Unknown male introduces Michael McClure and George Montana.
00:29- Michael McClure introduces the reading, and selection from “The Beards”. [INDEX: four-letter words, offended audience, poem in the form of a play, arrested, Los Angeles Police, state laws, state colleges in California, federal judges, Supreme Court, Billy the Kid, Jean Harlow, set of the play/poem, character’s costumes, stage.]
03:41- Michael McClure reads selection from “The Beards”. [INDEX: selection begins on first page of the play/poem, The Beards (Coyote, 1967).]
11:02- Introduces “Mad Sonnet 1” series, first line “The plumes of love are black...”. [INDEX: reading arrangement, intermission, musical pieces, George Montana, songs, “Mad Sonnets”, fourteen lines, rhyme scheme; from The New Book / A Book of Torture (Grove, 1961) and collected in Star (Grove Press, 1970)]
12:25- Reads “Mad Sonnet 1” first line “The plumes of love are black...”.
14:08- Introduces “Mad Sonnet 3” first line “Tiny mammals walk on white between the yellow...” [INDEX: ecological; from Star (Grove Press, 1970)]
14:23- Reads “Mad Sonnet 3” first line “Tiny mammals walk on white between the yellow...”
16:03- Introduces “Mad Sonnet 13” first line “On cold Saturday I walked in the empty valley of Wall Street...”. [INDEX: San Francisco, New York, Wall Street, Saturday morning, buildings, cliffs; from Star (Grove Press, 1970)]
16:32- Reads “Mad Sonnet 13 ” first line “On cold Saturday I walked in the empty valley of Wall Street...”.
17:58- Introduces “To Science”, published as “Mad Sonnet 5”. [INDEX: no-smoking signs in auditorium, technology, planet, all-chemical science, universe, rocket ships, space ships, tradition, songs written for science; from Star (Grove Press, 1970)]
19:20- Reads “To Science”.
20:48- Introduces poem from Ghost Tantras “#51” first line “I love to think of the red-purple rose...”. [INDEX: book of poems, Beast Language, half English, half in invented language, Ghost Tantras, German word “gist”, ghost, spirit, English, tantra, Hindu form of poetry, magical poetry, changes in the universe, body, Marvel Comic strips, some written in San Francisco, some written in airplanes, Mexico, Mexicana, Mexican sacred mushroom, scientists in Brooklyn, “Mad Sonnets”, 99 poems; from Ghost Tantras (Four Seasons, 1969)]
23:15- Begins to read unknown poem in Beast language.
23:19- Stops reading unknown poem. [INDEX: wrong poem, George Montana.]
24:00- Reads poem “Ghost Tantara #51”
25:42- Introduces poem first line “The motion of cool air shudders my shoulders...”. [INDEX: English, Spanish, George Montana; from unknown source]
25:57- Reads first line “The motion of cool air shudders my shoulders...”.
27:45- Talks about prior reading in Buffalo, New York. [INDEX: microphone problems, Buffalo, New York.]
27:55- Reads “Ghost Tantra #69” first line Ooor greeeooossshhh strato, butterfly, beaks and pants...”. [INDEX: from Ghost Tantras (Four Seasons, 1969)]
29:45- Introduces poem “Ghost Tantra #39 first line “Marilyn Monroe today...”. [INDEX: written the day after Marilyn Monroe’s death, August 6, 1962; from Ghost Tantras (Four Seasons, 1969)]
30:11- Reads “Ghost Tantra #39”
31:37- Introduces “Dark Brown”. [INDEX: Eddie [unknown reference], sexual ending, long poem, fifty years into the future, 19th century, nature poetry, atmosphere, air, environment, human bodies, concrete, changes, [Percy] Shelley, [John] Keats, cockney, stanzas, London Times literary supplement, independent stanzas, organism; from Dark Brown (Dave Haselwood Books, 1967)]
35:21- Reads “Dark Brown”.
37:48- Reads poem, first line “The black, black, black damned and un-dreamy...”. [INDEX: from Dark Brown (Dave Haselwood Books, 1967)]
40:00- Introduces poem, “(Fuck Ode)” first line “The huge figures fucking...”. [INDEX: justification of poems, from Dark Brown (Dave Haselwood Books, 1967)]
40:23- Reads “(Fuck Ode)”.
50:15- Michael McClure introduces a break and the second part of the reading. [INDEX: George Montana, break, instruments, music.]
51:09.06- END OF RECORDING.
00:00- Michael McClure and George Montana whisper to each other away from the microphone.
00:21- McClure and Montana begin to play unknown instruments, perhaps sitars.
00:33- Play first song. [Unknown song, no lyrics, only instrumental.]
10:47- McClure and Montana discuss which song to play next.
10:58- Montana introduces song. [INDEX: new song.]
11:10- McClure introduces song. [INDEX: melody, co-ordinated, singing.]
12:15- Play second song, George Montana sings. [Unknown song.]
19:50- McClure and Montana discuss playlist, inaudible to microphone.
20:30- McClure introduces the next song, “For President Walt” by Allen Ginsberg. [INDEX: smoking, auditorium, “Bells of Moscow”]
21:55- Plays song “For President Walt” by Allen Ginsberg, McClure sings.
25:35- McClure and Montana discuss next song, “The Bells of Moscow”.
26:46- Play song “The Bells of Moscow”.
32:08- McClure and Montana discuss next song, “Song: How sweet I roam’d from field to field” by William Blake [INDEX: practice at home, candles, incense, smoking.]
33:50- Play “Song: How sweet I roam’d from field to field” by William Blake.
39:37- McClure introduces song, first line “Takes a hundred sixty-five-thousand chicks to lay a railway from here to Chicago...”. [INDEX: Vorshack’s 43 auto-harp duet]
40:35- Play song, first line “Takes a hundred sixty-five-thousand chicks to lay a railway from here to Chicago...”.
45:51.44- END OF RECORDING.
Content Type:
Sound Recording
Featured:
Yes
Title:
McClure and Montana Tape Box - Back
Credit:
Drew Bernet
Content Type:
Photograph
Title:
McClure and Montana Tape Box - Front
Credit:
Drew Bernet
Content Type:
Photograph
Title:
McClure and Montana Tape Box - Spine
Credit:
Drew Bernet
Content Type:
Photograph
Title:
McClure and Montana Tape Box - Reel
Credit:
Drew Bernet
Content Type:
Photograph
Dates
Date:
3/22/1968
Type:
Performance Date
Source:
Supplemental Material
Notes:
Date specified in written announcement "Poetry at S.G.W.U."
LOCATION
Address:
1455, Boul de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Venue:
Hall Building Basement Theatre
Latitude:
45.4972758
Longitude:
-73.57893043
Notes:
Location specified in written announcement "Poetry at S.G.W.U."
CONTENT
Contents:
michael_mcclure_george_montana_i006-11-160.mp3
Introducer
00:00:00
Ladies and gentlemen, Michael McClure
, George Montana.
Audience
00:00:05
Applause.
Michael McClure
00:00:29
That was [unintelligible]. Star is a four letter word, s-t-a-r. Now, in case I read, I--is this on right? In case I read something here tonight with a four letter word in it, which I'm liable to cause I might start off be reading part of The Beard, um, [unintelligible] if anyone would be offended, it would be a good thing if they got their money back, right now. It's their right to do so.
Audience
00:01:07
Applause.
Michael McClure
00:01:22
The Beard is a poem of mine in the form of a play that's just been arrested fifteen nights in a row by Los Angeles
police and a state law has been passed against it being performed in the state colleges in California
. These are the trials and tribulations. And right now we're waiting for a panel of three federal judges to come and see it and decide if it has redeeming special significance. [Audience laughter]. And if they don't think it is, we'll take it to the Supreme Court
and see what they think. And, the play has two characters in it, Billy the Kid
and Jean Harlow
. And they're together in a blue velvet eternity, they both are wearing little beards made out of torn white tissue paper. They're--they only thing on the set with them is a table and two chairs covered with furs and Harlow is wearing a blue gown and she has a purse with her and a mirror and the Kid is dressed in a costume appropriate to his costume--I mean appropriate to his career. And when the curtain opens, there's an orange light shining on him which goes up after the first, about the first thirty seconds. And being that this is a poem in the form of a play, I can only read it, I can't read it properly, I can't be two people, I can't be Billy the Kid and Jean Harlow I can only be the author so I'll have to read it that way where it's actually meant to be a poem and acted by me on a stage, on a shelf with lights. We have a shelf with lights, but that's the best I can do.
Michael McClure
00:03:41
Reads selection from The Beard.
Audience
00:10:29
Applause.
Michael McClure
00:11:02
Um, I'm going to read two more tonight. I want to read for a while and then have an intermission and then I'd like to come back on and play some musical pieces that my music guru George Montana has been working on with me and we've been writing some songs together, but I'd like to read poems for maybe half an hour or so first. I want to read some poems called "Mad Sonnets" and I imagine a lot of you know what sons are, what known as sons are, fourteen lines with a legitimate rhyme scheme, and these are not quite exactly like that...Does this microphone sound right? If I stand right here is that okay so that I don't have to lean into it?
Michael McClure
00:12:25
Reads "Mad Sonnet" [from Star].
Michael McClure
00:14:08
Another "Mad Sonnet", kind of ecological.
Michael McClure
00:14:23
Reads ["Mad Sonnet 3" from Star].
Michael McClure
00:16:03
Here's a--I live in San Francisco
, but here's a "Mad Sonnet" that I started in New York
, I went to Wall Street
on a Saturday morning, I guess you can imagine what it's like during the weekdays, it's a narrow street, buildings stretching up like cliffs on each side of them and on Saturday morning it's cold and empty and you can feel the crush and vibrations from the previous part of the week.
Michael McClure
00:16:32
Reads [“Mad Sonnet 13” from Star, published later as “Cold Saturday Mad Sonnet” in Selected Poems].
Michael McClure
00:17:58
I never thought of those signs--they told me I can't smoke up here. It's my life. I'll do what I want, [unintelligible]. [Audience laughter]. The work--I think-are we all, I think I'm waiting for, this technology with which we live in, which is wonderful enough in it's own way, is also costly and [unintelligible], eating up the planet, and I think I'm waiting for an all-chemical science, by means in which we can manifest ourselves through the universe and I guess we'll have to tinker toys like rocket ships and space ships to begin it, but I don't think that's how we'll really do it. And it's become kind of tradition to write songs to science, so I guess I had to do one too.
Michael McClure
00:19:20
Reads [“Mad Sonnet 5” from Star].
Michael McClure
00:20:48
I've got a book of poems in a language I call Beast Language, they're about half in English and half in this invented language. The book is called Ghost Tantras, ghost like the German word "gist", g-i-s-t, which means spirit, and I just said "ghost". Why can't ghost be a spirit, why can't we use that in English? And tantra, t-a-n-t-r-a, which is a Hindu form of poetry, it's poetry written in an invented language for magical purposes to bring about changes in the universe. I felt these poems, I felt these poems coming on, and I felt like I had a ball of silence within myself, within my body and I heard these sounds within that ball of silence, and I wrote them down phonetically, so kind of like Marvel comics
, you know where it says "keee" or "rash", k-e-e-e, or r-a-s-h. And I see later that things like this have been done in gnostic Bizantine chants too, which also, is like Marvel comics. "Ka-pow". And some of them were written in San Francisco, some of them were written in airplanes, on the way to Mexico
. I was going to Mexico to bring back cultures of [unintelligible] Mexicana, the sacred [salsavie (?)] mushroom which were grown by scientists in Brooklyn
. And, then upon my return I finished from there. I finished these "Mad Sonnets", there are 99 of them and I don't think you've probably heard anything like them before, and I guess all you can do is just relax. I like to start with one that starts with English because it's not so strange, they're about a third English or half English maybe.
Michael McClure
00:23:15
Begins to perform unnamed sound poem.
Michael McClure
00:23:19
No, that's not it...Where'd George go? George? [Audience laughter].
Michael McClure
00:24:00
Performs “Ghost Tantra #51” [published later in Ghost Tantras].
Michael McClure
00:25:42
Here's another one that starts in English, it starts in Spanish. Just went to Spanish, [unintelligible] George is.
Michael McClure
00:25:57
Performs “Ghost Tantra #54” [published later in Ghost Tantras].
Michael McClure
00:27:45
I just had a lot of microphone trouble in Buffalo
too. I don't know what. It's alright?
Michael McClure
00:27:55
Performs “Ghost Tantra #69” [published later in Ghost Tantras].
Michael McClure
00:29:45
Here's one, this was written the day after Marilyn Monroe
died, August 6, 1962.
Michael McClure
00:30:11
Reads "Ghost Tantra #39" [published later in Ghost Tantras].
Michael McClure
00:31:37
You've got a tourist card in the back of the room [(?)] Is everybody relaxed? Cause I'm not. Eddie in [unintelligible] was dismissed recently and I guess this poem had something to do with it. And, the poem is the ending of, it's the sexual ending of a very long poem called "Dark Brown" I see nothing wrong in taking any sexual part of the poem from any other part of the poem, and the sexual writing today will be viewed in fifty years or a hundred years much the way we view nature poetry today in the 19th century, because some [unintelligible] classes we kept bringing up the fact that for our [unintelligible] today if you were to look at the atmosphere or the air we breathe, the primary part of our environment is either other human bodies or concrete and we choose human bodies rather than the concrete which seems to be a pretty good choice. I think that given the changes that are going on today, I believe we won't be able to say anything. If we can say anything now. If we can say anything anytime but I mean, I think this will be looked upon as [unintelligible] Nature poetry, Shelley
and Keats
were pulling cockney school in their day, which of course was all there is for Shelley since he was a [unintelligible] and probably some of Keats although it was worse since he was a cockney. [Audience laughter]. They were insulted for their new nature poetries, and this too. I'd like to read some like, preliminary stanzas of that poem, and then read part of the longer section which seems to have to do with the [unintelligible]. In Eddie's defense I'll say that the London Times
literary supplement found that this is [unintelligible]. The poem is written in independent stanzas, I'd like to think of the stanzas as being independent in the way an organism is, and the totality of the poem in the totality in a way an--the way a primitive--and this is a primitive organism is comprised of [unintelligible] individuals to make up its [unintelligible] of being. The poem is called "Dark Brown" and I've just opened it to the page I wanted to. The stanza I wanted to.
Michael McClure
00:35:21
Reads "Dark Brown" from Dark Brown.
Michael McClure
00:37:48
Reads ["The black black black damned and undreamy odem the undersoul" from Dark Brown].
Michael McClure
00:40:00
Another poem. Okay, have I justified enough? Now's your chance to go home. I'm going to read the tough part.
Michael McClure
00:40:23
Reads [“Fuck Ode” from Dark Brown].
Audience
00:50:00
Applause.
Michael McClure
00:50:15
I'll take a break. George and I are going to play, George Montana and I, and I won't guarantee anything about it as my fingers are feeling very clumsy tonight. I'll be playing an instrument but I know George will play for us, so if you hear any faults in the playing, it's me not George. I want to take like, at least, I want to take a ten minute break and anybody who'd like to stay is welcome to stay, and if you'd like to go, go, and if you want to leave during the music if you don't like the music for god's sake go. Thank you.
Unknown
00:51:09
[Cut or edit made in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].
Michael McClure
00:51:12
I'm kind of nervous, us going through it again.
George Montana
00:51:19
[IUnintelligible].
Michael McClure
00:51:23
Sure, let's see if it picks up.
George Montana
00:51:24
I think it's picking up
Michael McClure
00:51:25
Yeah?
George Montana
00:51:26
Yeah.
Michael McClure
00:51:27
Can you hear us whispering?
Audience
00:51:28
Yes.
Unknown
00:51:30
Ambient Sound [music].
Michael McClure
00:51:41
Let's see what it sounds like.
Michael McClure
00:51:43
Is it picking up? Can you hear in the back? Can you hear in the back row? Yeah, I think I lost that pic already. Christ.
Michael McClure and George Montana
00:52:17
Perform unnamed song.
Audience
01:01:41
Applause.
Michael McClure
01:01:56
Um, I don't think I can sing. Do you want to do that one?
George Montana
01:02:00
Ah, okay.
Michael McClure
01:02:04
Shall we tell them it's a new song? Why don't you tell them?
George Montana
01:02:07
This is a song that Michael and I just have done, so I don't know the words by heart yet. So here it is.
Michael McClure
01:02:19
And I haven't learned this melody very well yet. Let's get coordinated together. You set the [unintelligible]. You wanna sing it through three times?
Unknown
01:02:41
Ambient Sound [voices].
Michael McClure
01:02:57
Is this picking up alright? Can you hear it clear, loud enough? No? [Audience laughter]. Get out. [Audience laughter].
Michael McClure and George Montana
01:03:24
Perform unnamed song.
Audience
01:10:50
Applause.
Unknown
01:10:59
Ambient Sound [voices].
Michael McClure
01:11:39
These are called technical difficulties. By the way we can smoke on the stage now because the lights are off in the auditorium. That's the fire alarm. [Audience laughter].
Want to play the “Bells of Moscow”?
George Montana
01:12:22
How about the other [unintelligible].
Michael McClure
01:12:31
I don't think I'm up to...
George Montana
01:12:40
We're going to try to do the Allen Ginsberg
"For President Walt".
Michael McClure
01:12:43
I think I'm too scared to. We'll try it. I might be too--can you hear alright? I might be too scared. This isn't very complicated, isn't it a two chord one?
Michael McClure and George Montana
01:13:04
Perform "For President Walt" by Allen Ginsberg.
Michael McClure
01:13:20
I can't remember the words.
Michael McClure and George Montana
01:13:31
Perform "For President Walt" by Allen Ginsberg.
Audience
01:16:29
Applause.
Unknown
01:16:39
Ambient Sound [voices].
Michael McClure
01:16:45
I was just thinking you'd play it your way fast. No, let's do a non-vocal.
George Montana
01:17:03
Okay, which one.
Michael McClure
01:17:05
What about "The Bells of Moscow"?
George Montana
01:17:06
That one?
Unknown
01:17:11
Ambient Sound [voices].
George Montana
01:17:15
We'll play for you a little instrumental one it's called "The Bells of Moscow".
Michael McClure
01:17:20
Named today.
Michael McClure and George Montana
01:17:56
Perform "The Bells of Moscow".
Audience
01:23:06
Applause.
Michael McClure
01:23:17
I don't think that was picking up here. Alright. Or I was too close. More music lovers are leaving. I don't know, we could try the [unintelligible] thing.
Unknown
01:23:40
Ambient Sound [voices].
Michael McClure
01:24:12
George and I usually do this in my front room. With no light but a candle and the incense, but we can smoke there of course. This is a song by William Blake
.
Michael McClure and George Montana
01:24:59
Perform "How sweet I roam’d from field to field"
by William Blake.
Audience
01:30:25
Applause.
Michael McClure
01:30:46
How about, um, Dvořák’s
43rd auto-harp duet? Which one is that?
Michael McClure and George Montana
01:31:44
Begin to perform unnamed song.
Michael McClure and George Montana
01:31:58
Perform unnamed song.
Audience
01:35:52
Applause.
Unknown
01:35:57
Ambient Sound [voices].
Michael McClure
01:36:12
Good night.
Audience
01:36:28
Applause.
END
01:37:00
Notes:
Michael McClure reads poems collected in The Beards (Coyote, 1967), Star (Grove Press, 1970), Ghost Tantras (Four Seasons, 1969), and Dark Brown (Dave Haselwood Books, 1967). McClure also performs a number of songs with George Montana.
NOTES
Type:
General
Note:
Year-Specific Information:
Unknown date-around 1970. McClure was teaching at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California. He was publishing prolifically, often printing his own work in pamphlets and chap books.
Type:
General
Note:
Local Connections:
The connection between McClure and Sir George Williams University is unknown, however as a member of the Beat movement, McClure was certainly a poet of interest for Canadians. McClure read his poetry often and his performances were also a part of his poetics.
Type:
Preservation
Note:
Reel-to-reel tape>2 CDs>digital file
Type:
Cataloguer
Note:
Original transcript, research, introduction, and edits by Celyn Harding-Jones
Additional research and edits by Ali Barillaro
RELATED WORKS
Citation:
King, William R. “Michael (Thomas) McClure”. The Beats: Literary Bohemians in Postwar America. Ann Charters (ed). Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 16. Detroit: Gale Research, 1983.
Citation:
McClure, Michael. Dark Brown. San Francisco: Dave Haselwood Books, 1967.
Citation:
McClure, Michael. Ghost Tantras. San Francisco: Four Seasons Foundation, 1969.
Citation:
McClure, Michael. The Beard. San Francisco: Coyote Books, 1967.
Citation:
McClure, Michael. The New Book: A Book of Torture. New York City: Grove Press, 1967.
Citation:
McClure, Michael. Selected Poems. New York City: New Directions Books, 1986.
Citation:
McClure, Michael. Star. New York City: Grove Press, 1970.
Citation:
"McClure, Michael (Thomas)". The Oxford Companion to American Literature. James D. Hart, ed., rev. Phillip W. Leininger. Oxford University Press 1995.
Citation:
Camlot, Jason. “Mammals and Machines: Michael McClure’s Embodying Poetics”. Atenea, 23, no.1; June 2003.
Citation:
“Michael McClure” Literature Online Biography. Literature Online, 2008.