Meat Science Essays

by Michael McClure

Genres: Poetry, Essays, Nonfiction

82 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Michael McClure (born October 20, 1932 in Marysville, Kansas) is an American poet, playwright, songwriter, and novelist. After moving to San Francisco as a young man, he found fame as one of the five poets (including Allen Ginsberg) who read at the famous San Francisco Six Gallery reading in 1955 rendered in barely fictionalized terms in Jack Kerouac's Dharma Bums. He soon became a key member of the Beat Generation and is immortalized as "Pat McLear" in Kerouac's Big Sur.

Reviews

[Alex V. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh... I like Artaud-obsessed, drug-fueled, ecstatic firehoses of liberation as much as the next guy, but this book just didn't do it for me. I feel if I'd read this when I was 18, when everyone should go through a Beat obsession, I'd feel different. And maybe these seem tame now because of poets like McClure widened the hole through which poetry may escape, and I'm just taking it for granted.

And the guy did write "Mercedez Benz", so maybe this is just not the right book of his to hit.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Essays by the poet Michael McClure. As the note inside the cover says, “Its themes are suicide, death, revolt, sexuality & drugs, Artaud, Camus & liberty.” There are some great pages here on the Anglo-Saxon language.

Acquired 1986
The Word, Montreal, Quebec

[Nik Maack · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was fun until it got shrill and boring. Then it was a chore.