Rain Mirror: New Poems

New Directions, 1999. 1st Edition. Soft cover. Very Good. Association copy, inscribed to fellow poet Leslie Scalapino who, as founder and editor of O Books (in Oakland), published McClures Plum Stones: Cartoons of No Heaven in 2002. Scalapino was considered a language poet, but felt her closest ties were to the Beats. The inscription reads: "Aug 14, 2001, For Leslie, 'Stars are born / on high cliffs / in Nebulae.' [pg. 49] xx grahhr, Michael." His usual sort of growl-kiss. Scalapino wrote of McClures work, "He transposes (enacts) the (comic book bubble) language of his poetry theater; it is a mode of theater in both his poetry and his plays in both, the distinction between surface and intuitive apprehension is broken down or between that which is visual and (that as) language." A very good book with a modestly up-curled front cover (a book that was read), a gentle crease through some of the page block, and some ever-so-slight edge peeling to the lamination, otherwise near fine. The collection is two long poems, one a series of linked haiku and the other in three parts that capture "McClure's state of psyche, capillaries, muscles, fears, boldnesses, and hungers down where they exist without management." Well, then.