Product Description
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. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Insight From An Enlightened Beat
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 Ifound 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 theknowledge of someone who was there and lived it. McClure allows us into hismind and gives us a private tour of what many literary individuals havemeant to him. While there are many wonderful and deserving books out thereon the topic, one can't help but feel blessed upon discovering this beauty.I found that it not only allowed me to experience literature in a whole newelement but it also allowed me to experience it through the eyes of a quietmaster of the art. This is definitely a read that I highly recommend. ... Read more

Product Description
A spiritual odyssey by preeminent Beat Generation poet Michael McClure.

Mysteriosos and Other Poems, Michael McClure's newest book of poetry, explores the last seven years. These new poems speak of working toward freedom and beauty during a time of interminable war and the destruction of our natural surroundings. In the Introduction, McClure clarifies his playfulness with time, how within the moment of his writing all moments and memories exist. His "willingness of unwearied senses to be what they perceive" as Anne Waldman says, opens our perceptions. Included in this new collection is: a long travel poem to an Indian forest where an enraged elephant charges then recognizes an old human friend and turns back into the trees; "Double Moire" which "reads like a fulfillment of Goethe's prophesy and Shelley's: the whole universe seems to be in it, down to the smallest and up to the most vast. It is absolutely what the ultimate nature poem might be" (Jerome Rothenberg). The poems against war are fierce and canny while the "Mysteriosos" and "Cameos" can be as gentle as lullabies inventing love. "Dear Being," a garland of thirty-seven stanzas, uses the freedoms of Buddhist hwa yen. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (23)

Radios, appliances and automobles - The Crosley Empire
A very good readable history of Powell & Lewis Crosley and the manufacturing empire that they built. The many different things that they were associated with - WLW Radio, Cincinnati Reds Baseball team, Radios, Crosley automobiles and originators of refrigerators with shelves in the door. It was quite a heritage. This book should be read by everybody who enjoys learning about the history of people and products in our earlier Era.

Great book, was very interesting
The book 'Crosley' was a great read.It is detailed and tells a lot of information about the Crosley brothers and their manufacturing empire without dragging things down with boring side trips or too much information that isn't relevant.

I really felt like I was there with Powel and Lewis, as their fortunes multiplied and their business took off.They were truly American entrepreneurs and deserved the success they received.

This was one of the best books I have read in the past year or so and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to see how two talented men, through hard work and determination, built a company that should be remembered in the annals of American business history, but sadly has been largely forgotten.Hopefully this book will help cement their deserved place in the legacy of American business and society.

A LOOK BACK TO HISTORY
AN IN-DEPTH HISTORY INTO THE LIVES, FAILURES AND SUCCESS OF THE TWO CROSLEY BROTHERS.INTERESTING TO EVERYONE,ESPECIALLY TO ANTIQUE RADIO AND CAR FANS.

Suburb Biography...Extraordinary Lives
If you are one of those insecure individuals who feel intimidated by the accomplishments of others, don't read this book.For everyone else, you are truly in for a treat.This book not only tells the remarkable life stories of Ohio brothers, Powell and Lewis Crosley, but also takes the reader for a fascinating trip through history.From Crosley's dominance in radio, ownership of the Cincinnati Reds and winning a World Series, appliances, aviation, automobiles and even helping to win World War ll- the list goes on and on.The monumental accomplishments of these two brothers literally "transformed a nation" and greatly impacted the lives of millions of Americans.

Kudos to the authors for their meticulous research and a beautifully written biography.I certainly will have a higher degree of pride driving my '49 Crosley Hot Shot having learned the fascinating history behind the Crosley name.

Encompassing Saga
I did not know anything about the Crosleys until I read this book and was amazed at all the products Powel Crosley dreamt up and created.It is a very thorough book about their lives and successes, and failures, but I give it 4 stars only because the writing sometimes detracted me from the story.(How many Exit, Stage lefts/rights can you put in a book and who even writes that way?) plus too much info about minor or unimportant things (Lewis' dog?) but still a good read, and entertaining and informative. ... Read more

Product Description
The Beat Movement, which first rose to attention in 1955, has often been viewed by critics as an urban phenomenon--the product of a postwar youth culture with roots in the cities of New York and San Francisco. This study examines another side of the Beat Movement: its strong desire for a reconnection with nature. Although each took a different path in attaining this goal, the writers considered here--Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, Lew Welch, and Michael McClure--sought a new and closer connection to the natural world. These four writers, along with many of their counterparts in the Beat era, provided a crucial spark that helped to ignite the environmental movement of the 1970s and provided the foundation for the development of the current "Deep Ecology" worldview. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

The Greening of the Beats
The author sheds light on a side of the beat culture
which has been ignored by the mass media for far too
long. Many a word has been written about the Beat's
frontal attack upon the sleepy surburban world of
America circa late 1950s, but few have bottered to
examine their spiritual awareness as related to Mother
Earth. They were fresh voices who found spiritual
rebirth through nature and were in the forefront of
those questioning the prevalent doctrine of consummerism.
I would heartily recommend this well written book.

Must read
Wow- what a book.This book sheds new light on a topic I feel has already been covered.Phillips' personal interviews are fantastic.I would love to have Phillips for a professor, wait- I do.Phillips is the man, and so is his book.If you are reading this Dr. Phillips can I have a 4.0?You know who I am!

The Beats Reconsidered--Finally
Finally, a scholar has dug through the pop culture mud of the Beats to bedrock below: They weren't just citified tea-heads as Life magazine in the Fifties (and too many academics since) would have us believe.Thesewriters were deeply tuned into the natural world and drew upon it forinspiration and some of their best writing--even the seemingly most urbanof the lot--Kerouac. Case and point: Kerouac's"greening" in"Dharma Bums."Phillips' discussion of this novel is especiallyastute; and it sent me digging for my old copy.Similarly, Phillips'treatment of the Beats and Buddhism (Snyder in particular) is alsorefreshingly clear and original--not an easy thing to do. Phillips'research, including interviews with McClure, Welch and Snyder, is thoroughand convincing.Moreover, his prose is sharp and unencumbered with trendyjargon. I predict Beat scholars will reconsider certain assumptions uponreading this book--and Beat fans will find this to be a unique andexcellent addition to the ever-growing Beat canon. ... Read more

Product Description
This essential collection of Michael McClure's poetry contains the most original, radical, and visionary work of a major poet who has been garnering acclaim and generating controversy for more than fifty years. Ranging from A Fist Full, published in 1957, through Swirls in Asphalt, a new poem sequence, Of Indigo and Saffron is both an excellent introduction to this unique American voice and an impressive selection from McClure's landmark volumes for those already familiar with his boldly inventive work. One of the five poets who heralded the Beat movement in the 1955 Six Gallery reading in San Francisco, McClure reveals in his poetry a close kinship to Romanticism, Modernism, Surrealism, and Japanese haiku. These poems--grounded in imagination and a profound regard for the natural world--chart a poetic landscape of utter originality. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Keen and readable criticism
This highly readable and keen account should appeal to scholar and student alike. If you're already a fan of McClure's, I say read this book, if only to learn why the poet always uses so many CAPITAL LETTERS.

For those of you who don't know McClure well, let me tell you briefly about this fine study on him. Michael McClure's artistic career began as one of the poets at the famous Six Gallery reading in 1955 with other Beat poets like Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder (Jack Kerouac was in the audience).Since then, over the last 50 years, Michael McClure has gone on to write poetry, plays, and polemics--and he's made music with Janis Joplin and Ray Mazarek of the Doors.A true artist!

The author of this study, Rod Phillips, is a university professor, who has written another book on the Beats as proto-environmentalists that I've also read and found very convincing (I teach college as well).In this latest effort, Phillips locates McClure in several literary, philosophical and scientific traditions, including, to use McClure's own term, "mammalian" tradition.Moreover, Phillips does an excellent job creating a sense of the effect upheavals like the Vietnam War had on McClure's work and what he in turn did to influence the art and politics of the day. ... Read more

Product Description
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. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Huge Dreams : San Francisco and Beat Poems
I'm so excited that these books have been republished. I've never been able to own a copy of either of these books but now after about 30 years you can own a New Book/A Book of Torture and Star in one volume.

If youenjoy beat poetry these books are a must read. The richness of the writingand the vastly different ideas are a shining of example of the beat era.McClure's writing is clear, extremely provocative, and a delight to read. ... Read more

Product Description
     Innovative Beat poet Michael McClure has written a book of poems unlike any of his others. These dharma devotions are fruits of his Buddhist mediation practice. Like bold calligraphy moving vertically down a white scroll, they surprise the eye and mind, awakening us to a heightened sense of everyday things. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A dance along the path from Beat to Buddhist.
Few reviews notice the delicious subtext -- a biography of the poet's calico kitten growing to cathood through the year of zazen these poems reflect, a constant reminder of animal Buddha-nature.I'm reminded ofKerouac's line about "the little cat crying for meat, himself a littlemeat soul..."As for the main theme, _Booklist- gets it right:

"Beat poets McClure and [others] caused a great seismicshift inliterature with their fresh and liberated approaches to language andfocus on the chimerical workings of the mind.Their meditativeperspectives led not only to revolutionary poetry but to sustainedand beautifully articulated Buddhist practices.In his newcollection, McClure presents a series of dharma devotions -- lithelyobservant and gently philosophical musings -- that flow down thecenter of elongated pages like brooks, tree trunks, reeds, or thebrush strokes of calligraphy.As the reader's eyes slide happilydown these wavy word columns, joyful images of the naturalworld -- hummingbirds and raccoons, honeysuckles and waterfalls, fogand stone -- open like flowers in the verdant field of McClure'ssweetly bemused commentary on our wayward nature.Delicate as hispoems are, they nevertheless pack a punch, powered by the tension ofdualities and charged with agile leaps of thought."

_Touchingthe Edge_ does a beautiful job of reminding today's readers why and howBuddhism spoke to the original Beat generation -- and continues to speak toits heirs.

MIND MANIFESTING
Poetry exists to be read aloud ~ like music, to be played, embodied.Michael McClure's poetry is unmistakable in its look as well as its vision.Roughly centered, it reads as the body language of a living organism ~muscular, as well as mental.Not only are sentences sometimes chopped. Like this.But also lines can break after just one word; some even letterby letter.The net effect is a welcome slowdown of mindawake to the richness of life.The bigness of minute particulars, as wellas the infinite; being; space; etc.

One of the original Beats,McClure is a hip prodigy reaching maturity gracefully, a rare thing.Hisrecent Buddhist practice is like the capstone of a lifetime's overarchingconcerns.Marrying mysticism and biology, his wok has always been typifiedby an expressionist vitalism.Now it gains a new, genuine, metaphysicaldrama as it juxtaposes non-action to verbal "action painting." The image and the imageless.The miraculous and the everyday.Cosmic anddomestic.Nondualism.

TOUCHING THE EDGE is a book-length poem,recording a home-video epic of the process of practice.The effect ofreading it (aloud) is as tantric as Francesco Clemente's watercolors, aspsychedelic ("mind-manifesting") as the Flower Garland Sutra. Informed by the Soto Zen tradition of sitting just to sit, hiswriting-just-to-write traces the shape of mind in motion (and at stillness)with a wealth of keen perception along the way.Apples blush. Cats performNoh drama under an apple tree.A poet dreams of lions and Herakles.Andrice roars.

This craft ~ a seemingly artless art ~ can carry usacross. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Windpipe weirdness
Read 'em aloud, folks; and preferably in a purple haze. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Spiritual and Sexual, what a combo!
Loved it

The Beard by Michael McClure
This is a really fantastic play - from what I've read of it. I did a scene from The Beard a few weeks ago in English class & it was just fantastic. The two characters in the play are Billy the Kid - fabled outlaw of American folklore - & Jean Harlow - cinema star & uber-Marilyn Monroe. The entire play I gather is a meeting between these two in the blue velvet Eternity. Eternity like where Jack & Rose meet in the end of Titanic (& the boat sinks for those who haven't seen it). This play is just sort of conversation like & not to pretentious like you might imagine the blue velvet Eternity to be. There is a little bit of swearing so all you prudes keep away etc etc. The sexual tension is great. I like it. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Poetry for Everyone
This book rocked!I loved every poem in it.I thought that these poems reached out to many poeple and they all contained a special message!Everyone has to read this! ... Read more