(1932–)

(Full name Michael Thomas McClure) American poet, novelist, playwright, essayist, nonfiction writer, and critic.

McClure’s work as a Beat poet and playwright explores the balance between body and mind, stressing the existence of a biological consciousness that ties all life together. In a prolific career that spans the second half of the twentieth century, McClure’s early association with the San Francisco Beat movement fueled his development of a writing style that incorporates animal consciousness and scientific, ecologically motivated poetics. Often controversial for using explicit language and depicting drug use, McClure’s work has been both challenged as obscene and heralded as true American genius.

Biographical Information

Born in 1932 to Thomas and Marian (Dixie Johnston) McClure in Marysville, Kansas, McClure spent his childhood in both the vast farmlands of Kansas and his grandfather’s home in the Pacific rainforests of...