Monday, Jun 17, 2019 7:00 PM

Location:
In the basement.
2476 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley

Website

This reading has been postponed. We will reschedule soon!

Two books in Spanish, Agnosia and Neuronas del Espíritu available, along with copies of Michael's latest, Persian Pony and books by Juvenal.

At the age of twenty-two Michael McClure gave his first poetry reading at the legendary Six Gallery event in San Francisco where Allen Ginsberg first read Howl. He is the author of more than twenty-five books of poetry, two novels,several books of essays, and journalism included in the Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair. He has received numerous honors including a Guggenheim fellowship, the Alfred Jarry Award, and an honorary doctorate from California College of the Arts. He created two TV documentaries. A prolific playwright, his 1965 play The Beard instigated a successful censorship battle after the police arrested the actors of the Los Angeles production fourteen nights in a row. The play went on to receive two Obies and is performed across the U.S. and Europe. McClure's songwriting includes;Mercedes Benz; with Janis Joplin. With keyboardist of The Doors, Ray Manzarek, McClure performed poetry and music on stages around the world, and their most recent CD is Piano Poems. His collaboration with maestro Terry Riley created the CD I Like Your Eyes Liberty. Besides poetry and art, his deep interests are the biological environment and biology. McClure describes himself as a mammal patriot and believes, in the words of Diane di Prima that, "The only war that matters is the war against the imagination."

Recent books include two Spanish translations, Neuronas del Espíritu, Varasek Ediciones 2018 and Agnosia y Otros Poemas, Fundación Vicente Huidobro 2019, Persian Pony, Ekstasis Press 2017; Mephistos, City Lights 2016; a 50th anniversary edition of Ghost Tantras, City Lights 2013; Of Indigo and Saffron, UC Press; Mysteriosos, New Directions; Three Poems, Penguin; Touching the Edge, Shambhala. McClure lives in the Oakland hills with the sculptor Amy Evans McClure.

Juvenal Acosta is a writer who has published fiction, journalism, and poetry. He is the author of the novels The Tattoo Hunter and The Violence of Velvet.

He has published three books in collaboration with artists: Paper of Live Flesh and Tango of the Scar (both limited edition artist books) and Tauromaquia (an essay on bullfighting).

He has edited anthologies of contemporary Mexican poetry published by City Lights Books.

BA, New College of California; PhD, University of California, Davis