Conversations with Michael McClure features twenty interviews from 1969 to 2015 that chronicle the capacious scope of McClure’s creativity. McClure (1932–2020) is notable not only for his considerable achievements as a poet and prose writer of the Beat Generation, but also for the many collaborative connections he forged over seven decades. From the 1950s to his death, McClure worked with an astonishing range of important figures in the worlds of painting, filmmaking, music, and science. McClure counted among his friends and acquaintances Bruce Conner, Harold Pinter, Amiri Baraka, Richard Brautigan, Wallace Berman, George Herms, Lawrence Jordan, Dennis Hopper, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, Sterling Bunnell, Francis Crick, Gary Snyder, Francesco Clemente, and Diane di Prima. During his early years in San Francisco, McClure attended Kenneth Rexroth’s literary evenings and formed significant lifelong friendships. Among those friends were poet Philip Lamantia and Robert Duncan, who became a mentor to McClure. He also learned much from Charles Olson and adopted several features of Olson’s concept of ""Projective Verse"" in his own work. McClure’s exchange of letters with experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage lasted for four decades. During his illustrious career, McClure published fourteen books of poetry, eight books of plays, and four collections of essays. Conversations with Michael McClure reveals the many contributions of this central personality in the evolution of the American counterculture.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Chronology Six San Francisco Poets: Snyder, Whalen, Michael McClure, Meltzer, Ferlinghetti, Antoninus David Kherdian / 1969 Gahr, Groooor, Grayohh: For a Meat Poetry—An Interview with Michael McClure Roland Husson / 1973 Michael McClure Interview David Rollison / 1976 An Interview with Michael McClure Stephen Vincent / 1977 A Conversation with Michael McClure Kevin Power / 1978 Interview with Michael McClure Inger Thorup Lauridsen and Per Dalgard / 1983 Poetry Wars: An Interview with Michael McClure Barry Miles / 1986 An Interview with Michael McClure S. E. Gontarski / 1990 An Interview with Michael McClure Steve Luttrell / 1994 Craft Interview with Michael McClure New York Quarterly / 1995 "What Are Souls?": An Interview with Michael McClure Jack Foley / 2001 Realm Buster: Stan Brakhage Steve Anker / 2001 Artists on the Cutting Edge: Michael McClure Delivers a Passion for Poetry George Varga / 2001 Interview with Michael McClure Sergio Cohn / 2004 A Fierce God and a Fierce War: An Interview with Michael McClure Rod Phillips / 2007 Beat Poet Michael McClure on Jim Morrison, the Doors, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac Anis Shivani / 2011 Interview with Poet Michael McClure Jonah Raskin / 2013 Break on Through Garrett Caples / 2013 Poetry Questions: Michael McClure Rebecca Foresman / 2013 Beat Poet Michael McClure Tries New Style at Eighty-Three Sam Whiting / 2015 Index