Michael McClure, a central figure in the Beat Poetry movement, died Monday from complications of a stroke, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. He was 87. During much of his life, McClure was everywhere the counterculture was: co-writing “Mercedes-Benz” with Janis Joplin, reading his work at the Golden Gate Park protest that started 1967’s Summer of Love, touring with The Doors’ Ray Manzarek, appearing as the character Pat McClear in Jack Kerouac’s novel Big Sur, and performing alongside Allen Ginsberg at the first reading of “Howl” that electrified the poetry world and jumpstarted the Beats. Actor Dennis Hopper said of the poet, “Without the roar of McClure, there would have been no ’60s.” He taught for 43 years at the California College of the Arts. City Lights bookstore, also integral to the Beats, published McClure’s work since 1963. The last in his career of more than six decades was 2017’s Persian Ponies.
