A Memory of Michael McClure
by Ed Sanders
Woodstock, NY
in memory of my longtime
friend & literary explorer
Michael McClure
A bunch of us performed at Town Hall in NYC
in May of ’94 — as the finale of a 5 Day
Conference on the Beat Generation at NYU
I opened the evening by calling
William Burroughs in Lawrence, Kansas
and talked with him from the stage
to the applause of the overflow audience
Later I stood stageside and bantered
with Michael McClure & Gregory Corso
Some of the best moments at this sort of event
are found in the intimate discourse
standing offstage or in the dressing rooms
I told McClure
that Johnny Depp
had paid 15 grand
to Kerouac’s estate
for one of
Jack’s jackets
He & Ray Manzarek were
just about to go on
& Ferlinghetti
was toning
his final poem
McClure flipped me
the hard Sophoclean eye & said
“I have five or six of those.”
“So do I,” I replied,
my mind shifting cunningly
from free will
to Good Will
thinking, of course, that
Depp will need a
2nd coat for when
the 1st is in the cleaners
& another
for his summer home
& one for his manse in Nice