Touching the edge

The Work of the Celebrated Beat Poet Michael McClure has always been innovative: his book Ghost Tantras incorporated his "beast language" - a vocabulary of growls, roars, and moans interspersed with human speech. He co-wrote the Janis Joplin hit "Mercedes-Benz," was literary mentor to The Doors singer Jim Morrison, and performs his poetry internationally with the piano accompaniment of keyboardist and composer Ray Manzarek. Now McClure has written a book of poems unlike any of his others. These dharma devotions are fruits of his Buddhist meditation practice. Like bold calligraphy moving vertically down a white scroll, they surprise the eye and mind, and so awaken us to a heightened sense of everyday things.