Huge Dreams: San Francisco and Beat Poems

by Michael McClure

Overview

Huge Dreams republishes two books, out of print for thirty years, which together are a cornerstone of the Beat movement: The New Book/A Book of Torture and Star. Both were influential in expanding poetry into a larger world:the West Coast Beat phenomena, which focused on nature, the environment, antiwar activities, individual anarchism, Zen Buddhism, jazz, and a kind of romantic mystical thought. With these books Michael McClure brought an animal energy and a knowledge of art and physical human nature that was new to the scene.

The New Book/A Book of Torture was written spontaneously while McClure was in a "dark night of the soul" brought on by psychedelics. A single long poem of experience and exploration, it offers the means of liberation from the darkness it examines. Star is a wide-ranging book of chalice seeking, spiritual discovery, and political protest, grounded in the emotions and sensations of eros and play.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780140589177
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/01/1999
Series:	Penguin Poets
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.97(w) x 8.97(h) x 0.51(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Michael McClure has published novels, interviews, essays, and plays. In recent years he has performed his poetry in collaboration with the Doors keyboardist, Ray Manzarek.

Read an Excerpt

MATTER

MATTER IS ALIVE, BY GOD
MATTER IS ALIVE!
The grains of crystal slide.
It is the molecular consciousness!
((I must be a Pagan to survive it
TO SURVIVE
this vision.
With grinning teeth!))
It takes its shape.
Fanatic Will.
Dripping. Pouring. Pressing.
HAH!Copyright ©1998 Penguin Putnam Inc. All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

Huge DreamsIntroduction by Robert Creeley: "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities . . ."

The New Book/A Book of Torture
Epigraph
Ode to Jackson Pollock
For Jack Kerouac/The Chamber
Deep Cloud
Ode on the End of Jazz
For Charles Olson
A Fantasy and Courtly Poem
Ode for Soft Voice
Fragment of a Hymn
Lines from a Peyote Depression
The Room
The Strain
Yes Table
For Artaud
Rant Block
The Column
L'Étoile, The Star
The Flowers of Politics, One
The Flowers of Politics, Two
A Small Secret Book
1. For Philip Lamantia
2. Oh Christ God
3. The Shark Is the Lamb
4. Oh Christ Oh God
5. For Thelonious Monk
A Cool Pamphlet
Ode to the Rose
For Jane
Blue Rose
Pollen
La Plus Blanche

Star
13 Mad Sonnets
For an Unknown Melody
November's Texas Song
Small Ode on the Need to Drink
A Rose
The Lion-Beams
The Purple One
Love & Strength
The Pansy
Ode to the Negative Universe
Valentine's Day Sonnet
Sonnet
Mad Sonnet
Mad Sonnet
The Child
Under the Black Trees
The Surge
A Thought
The Answer
The Human Face
A Thought
There Is Not Passion Enough
Love Lion Book
Drunk Variation
Grahr Mantra
Poisoned Wheat
For Kenneth Anger
Overpop
Variation
Mantra
William H. Bonney: Billy the Kid
Cupid's Grin
Matter
The Sermons of Jean Harlow & The Curses of Billy the Kid
Viet Nam Song
Liberation
After Thoughts