Of Indigo and Saffron

New and Selected Poems

Michael McClure, Leslie Scalapino

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN:
  9780520262874
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780520947337
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: North American Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

This essential collection of Michael McClure's poetry contains the most original, radical, and visionary work of a major poet who has been garnering acclaim and generating controversy for more than fifty years. Ranging from A Fist Full, published in 1957, through Swirls in Asphalt, a new poem sequence, Of Indigo and Saffron is both an excellent introduction to this unique American voice and an impressive selection from McClure's landmark volumes for those already familiar with his boldly inventive work. One of the five poets who heralded the Beat movement in the 1955 Six Gallery reading in San Francisco, McClure reveals in his poetry a close kinship to Romanticism, Modernism, Surrealism, and Japanese haiku. These poems—grounded in imagination and a profound regard for the natural world—chart a poetic landscape of utter originality.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction: The instant is the giant lamp we throw / our shadows
• FROM HYMNS TO ST. GERYON, 1959
• FROM A FIST FULL, 1956 – 1957
• FROM DARK BROWN, 1961
• FROM THE NEW BOOK/A BOOK OF TORTURE, 1961
• FROM LITTLE ODES, 1961
• FROM GHOST TANTRAS, 1964
• FROM STAR, 1970
• FROM HAIL THEE WHO PLAY, 1974
• FROM SEPTEMBER BLACKBERRIES, 1974
• FROM JAGUAR SKIES, 1975
• STANZAS FROM RARE ANGEL, 1975
• FROM FRAGMENTS OF PERSEUS, 1983
• FROM REBEL LIONS, 1984
• FROM SIMPLE EYES & OTHER POEMS, 1993
• STANZAS FROM DOLPHIN SKULL, 1995
• FROM RAIN MIRROR, 1999
• FROM PLUM STONES: CARTOONS OF NO HEAVEN, 2002
• SWIRLS IN ASPHALT
• Credits
• Index of Titles and First Lines