Scratching the Beat Surface: Essays on New Vision from Blake to Kerouac
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.35 (546 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0140232524 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 192 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2013-01-20 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
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
This insider's view of the Beat scene of the fifties and early sixties vividly marks the advancement of a new perception of art as "a living bio-alchemical organism" through essays by a poet and playwright who helped shape the movement.
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.
"Scratching something" according to A Customer. I've read and watched some of McClure's poetry and drama and found it uninterestingly narcissistic, disappointing because he writes from a presumably environmentalist viewpoint, although it's hard to get much significance out of his version of ecology except for occasional rants against things like feed lot beef. I thought this book, which purports to be about his fellow Beat writers, would be more comprehensible. Instead, I found it less, as though he's writing in some special language inaccessible to the uninitiated. The story of the Emperor's new clothes comes to mind:. "Insight From An Enlightened Beat" according to A Customer. As a person fortunate enough to have met Michael McClure, it seems only natural that I would appreciate this book. However, I read this book a few years before I was actually privileged with Mr. McClure's presence. What I found so refreshing about this book is that not only are we, as readers, exposed to new insight into the Beat phenomenom but we are graced with the knowledge of someone who was there and lived it. McClure allows us into his mind and gives us a private tour of what many literary individuals have meant to him. While there are many wonderful and deserving b