The Michael McClure Papers: Additions, 1874-2002, (bulk 1949-2002), present a comprehensive view of his work as a writer, spanning the length of McClure's career. The bulk consists of notebooks and writings, including poems, prose, and plays in manuscript, draft and final form. There is very little correspondence. There are also professional papers, which include posters, flyers, and broadsides, many advertising readings by McClure and others, and productions of his plays, including The Beard. There is a small amount of artwork by McClure, his family, and friends; and materials by and about artists Bruce Conner, Wallace Berman, and George Herms from William Jahrmarkt and the Batman Gallery, among others. The small amount of personal papers include records and family correspondence. These papers complement The Bancroft Library's other extensive holdings documenting the postwar San Francisco poetry renaissance and its influence on American literature.

Poet, playwright, novelist, and essayist Michael McClure has spread his literary net wide, but is best known as one of the leading poets of the Beat generation. Born in Marysville, Kansas on October 20, 1932, McClure became intimately associated with the counter-culture of the West coast. His childhood was initially spent in the environs of Seattle, Washington, but McClure and family were to return to Kansas where he finished high school and attended college, first at the University of Wichita, Kansas and then the University of Arizona. He finished his studies in San Francisco, receiving his Bachelor of Arts from San Francisco State College in June of 1955. During this time he studied with poet Robert Duncan. Poetry is a muscular principle- an athletic song or whisper of flashy thought. We can be as serious as blue-black gloom or bright as a buttercup in the dawn. The spirit of poetry is loops we send out from the expanding helix of our lives. With poetry we can meet an old perception on a mountain top or in a subway, or view a new perception loping in the distance like a wolf- or glimmering like an opal in the twilight.

Number of containers: 53 boxes, 14 volumes, 2 oversize boxes, and 13 oversize folders Linear feet: Approx. 23

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Collection is open for research.