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Huge Dreams: San Francisco and Beat Poems

Huge Dreams - Michael McClureHUGE DREAMS brings back two books, long out of print, that are a cornerstone of the Beat movement.

For the first time in one volume, The New Book / A Book of Torture and Star present vividly contrasting sides of poetry’s consciousness. In The New Book / A Book of Torture, a classic example of immediate biological expression, Michael McClure simultaneously delves into, and delivers himself from, the self-christened “dark night of the soul.” Star, a book of wide-ranging exploration, spiritual discovery, and political protest, springs from the essence of our humanity — emotions, the sensations of eros, and play.

Both were influential in expanding poetry into a larger world that focused on nature, the environment, antiwar activities, individual anarchism, Zen Buddhism, jazz, and a kind of romantic mystical thought. Together these two books impart a sense of the rich texture and individuality that fueled the Beat scene.

MATTER

MATTER IS ALIVE, BY GOD!
MATTER IS ALIVE!
The grains of crystal slide.
It is the moleclar consciousness!
((I must be a Pagan
to survive it
— TO SURVIVE
this vision.
With grinning teeth!))
It takes its shape.
Fanatic Will.
Dripping. Pouring. Pressing.
HAH!

— from Star
Huge Dreams: San Francisco and Beat Poems
Publisher: Penguin Poets
Year: 1999
ISBN: 9780140589177
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PERSIAN PONY Events in B.C., October 18 & 19

Michael McClure's new book, Persian Pony, has been released! Attend a poetry reading or a night of poetry and jazz in British Columbia. Get the details here.

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