Antechamber, & Other PoemsAntechamber and Other Poems, Michael McClure's latest book with New Directions, joins a growing list of contributions that includes the verse collection September Blackberries (1974) and Jaguar Skies (1975) as well as the musical play Gorf (1976). His writing in recent years is "alchemical" in its intent, yet his twin declarations, "Biology Is Politics" and "I Am A Mammal Patriot," perhaps express more accurately both the universality of his outlook and its humane particularity. McClure's mysticism is vigorously scientific. Even the familiar patterned shapes of his poems remind us of the stars in the night sky and those we see when we shut our eyes. In the dancing lines of his newest work--the title poem "Antechamber" most especially--are the whirl of galaxies, the radiance of molecules, the energy lines of the double helix coiling around its core. |
Common terms and phrases
ACCURSED WITH NORMALITY airiness and aureoles Alladay ANGELS catching light ANTECHAMBER babes beauty flows behemoth BLACK HOLES BORROWED FEET breath candles cataract chinchilla chop and moil circle round CLOUDS OF MEAT consciousness constellations COUSIN ANGELS catching crowded land DARK face flesh flies are supping flocks of nectar-drinking galaxies GNAT'S WING gnats at sundown golden HEARTACHE PAIN hummingbird hurl Jack Sail-by-the-wind jellyfish kiss kitten's belly KNIGHTS IN SPASTIC KNOW each challenge KNOW WE CROWDED lasted a billion Luck MAMMAL PATRIOT melting things move in helixes MOVING SIZELESS ROOMS MUSCULAR IMAGINATION nectar-drinking flies new-warmed night ONCE IN IMITATION OPALS pansy's Portuguese Man-o'-war raccoon RAINBOW-COLORED KNIGHTS ROOMS THAT PUSH rosy lovely light SCARLET KNIGHT scent shades SHAPES IN SPACE shattered substrate skulls and fins smile Social Ogre SPASTIC BOATS SPINNING CLOUDS stars SUNDOWN are COUSIN SYSTEM WRAPS tentacles and throats tickle our nose unfurled velvet waves WE'RE RAINBOW-COLORED KNIGHTS WHIRL YELLOW PANSIES
Popular passages
Page 17 - POETICS YES! THERE IS BUT ONE POLITICS AND THAT IS BIOLOGY. BIOLOGY IS POLITICS. We dive into the black, black rainbow of the end unless we spend our life and build love in creation of what is organic. The old views (worn and blasted) are a structure of death. Our breath IS TO SERVE THE ULTIMATE beauty of ourselves.
Page 11 - THERE ARE VERY FEW IN SEARCH OF THE DIVINE! It is not crime or love that intrigues us for they are part of the thrust that strives and presses in each conceivable direction. The dust upon our feet is galaxies. Our lives are a weird confection created by the Social Ogre that we are. Everything we know and do is a dissection and plodding rearrangement, and defamation, of our shapes and our estrangements.
Page 9 - FRANK, HOW PLEASED I AM to see that Death's Head tattoo of red and blue blocked in with solid black; how good to view the sign of madcap finality filled up with darkness to make a wing shape forever flying on your arm. It is your new charm or token and it shows that spirit cannot be broken but ever grows toward flight.
Page 7 - See, the cloud of repetitive sex is the despair of the caged. The adolescent strut of grown men is not free movement but the madness of stress. The endless murders and soiled bodies are the mess of robots and social ogres. WE WHO SEE CLEARLY APPRISE YOU OF THIS! Oh, swim in the world; Liberty can be unfurled.
Page 2 - I'M TOO SLY not to know that gliding vulture is the flow of the biomass hurled out to feast on the spreading yeast of itself. We are all incredible sculptures of molecules! I stand here like a raccoon on the asphalt hearing the voices of ravens —and I blink in the sun.
Page 13 - WHAT ELEGANCE TO BE A LIVING PEARL in a clustered swirl that spins through time and space. Throwing out a lacy net of loops from my trajectory, I catch this self in momentary immortality. I'm Goethe, Schiller, or a white white weasel dashing on the snow.
Page 6 - The look upon a lover's face. —OLD MEN SLEEPING IN SPEEDING CARS, a hawk on a boulder dripping with fog, ten deer in an autumn meadow, yellow aspens, bishop pines by the ocean. These all speak more as our stiffness relaxes into new birth. The worth of things cracks open and shows the intestines. Glittering gold trembling on darkness. TRUE WILDNESS IS COMPRISED OF ACTS that are not domesticated.
Page 8 - TO THE DRIVE-IN TELLER AT THE BANK YOU FACE ME WITH THE COLOR PHOTO OF YOUR CHILD taped to the window as if she were you and the universe were some mild beast to smile on the endless reflections of your image.
Page 1 - Within his skin each guru holds a fool but none like me who secretly contrives a liberation filled with buttercups and blue-eyed grass and golden tracks of spring upon the hill and air that's filled with scent of rose and dill.