Rain Mirror: Poems: 887 (New Directions Paperbook) - Softcover

Mcclure, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0811214265 ISBN 13: 9780811214261

Publisher: New Directions, 2003

Synopsis

"Rain Mirror", writes poet Michael McClure, "is my most bare and forthright book. It contains two long poems, 'Crisis Blossom' and 'Haiku Edge' which are quite disparate from one another". Yet brought under a single cover, the poems compliment each other as do light and dark, the Apollonian and the Dionysian, Yin and Yang. "Haiku Edge" is a serial poem of linked haikus in the American idiom. Often humorous, sometimes harsh, always elegant, they catch moments in the landscape of Oakland's East Bay Hills where McClure now lives. "Crisis Blossom" in contrast is a long poem in three parts ("Graftings", "After the Solstice", and "After Meltdown") that record the poet's months' long shock and recovery after a near-fatal airplane accident. It is, in McClure's words, "my state of psyche, capillaries, muscles, fears, boldnesses, and hungers, down where they exist without management". With Rain Mirror, the poet moves in two directions, inward and outward, to arrive at the balance point between the self and nonself: There's Me/and no me/on the other side/I'm here under hand/And There/where thoughts glide".

About this title

About the Author:

Michael McClure, a founding member of the Beat Generation, has long been noted for the popularity of his dynamic poetry performances. At twenty-two he gave his first poetry reading at the legendary Six Gallery event in San Francisco, where Allen Ginsberg first read Howl. He is the co-author of the song "Mercedes Benz" and often performs with musicians, notably Ray Manzarek and Terry Riley.

Synopsis:

Presents two long poems, "Haiku Edge"--a poem of linked haiku--and "Crisis Blossom"--a record of the author's recovery from a psychological crisis.

About this edition

• Publisher: New Directions
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0811214265
• ISBN 13: 9780811214261
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 112