Katherine Hastings – Review of Of Indigo and Saffron — New and Selected Poems by Michael McClure

Of Indigo and Saffron — New and Selected Poems
by Michael McClure, edited and with an introduction by Leslie Scalapino (University of California Press ,2011)

"This is countless times/BETTER/than being rich/and it has sweet breath." — from "Plum Stone Two", Michael McClure

Forget the Six Gallery reading when a young Michael McClure read on the same night Ginsberg read Howl. Or at least forget it for a while. Instead, find out when Michael McClure will be reading in your area from his latest book, Of Indigo and Saffron — New and Selected Poems and then go. You won't be sorry. He has made several appearances in the Bay Area recently. I was fortunate enough to see him at Moe's in Berkeley and the poetry section on my shelves is richer for having placed Of Indigo and Saffron next to Star; Huge Dreams; Mysteriosos and other works by McClure.

Leslie Scalapino, the magnificently unusual and interesting L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poet who died in May last year, was a very good friend of McClure's. In this way, Of Indigo and Saffron is a double-gift; it contains an inspired collection of McClure's poems chosen by someone close to him, and an introduction that reveals a deep understanding of McClure's poetic history, awakenings, intentions and "intellectivity," a word coined by McClure. Some poems are expected: "For the Death of 100 Whales," "Peyote Poem," "Hummingbird Ode," and others that will be familiar to anyone who has followed McClure's career. Others are more surprising (at least to me), and delightfully so. "To Glean the Livingness of Worlds" ("2. MY EYES WERE NOT TURNED BACK/UPON THEMSELVES/but went reaching out through all the wolves and elves/that slept beneath my bed and in the corners of my head…"; "Cold Saturday Mad Sonnet" (Oh perfect chill slot of space!/WALL STREET, WALL STREET…"); "The Cheetah" ("What is human/is so much more obvious/in beings with tails.")

Placed at the end of the book is McClure's new poem sequence, Swirls in Asphalt. As Scalapino points out, "each particle (or poem in the sequence) is an instant…and all parts are the same instant…The only light struggle as such is physical — awareness — an almost effortless act of reading in which the attention of the reader is held throughout." The series begins with a quote by Dogen Zenji: "The limits of the knowable are unknowable" — an appropriate opening for poems that do nothing if not continually open, and then open some more. These newer poems affirm that McClure is still a tremendous poetic force in message and magic and style. "THE FOREST OF HORSES/is a floating/island/in the eye..." (#20).

A famous poet told me not long ago that the poets to pay attention to today are the young poets; they're what's "happening". Without turning my back on that young talent, I say don't turn your back on McClure, either. He is no longer young. But the young, and everyone else, would be hard pressed to read a more relevant, original and "happening" contemporary poet, a poet who continues to add to the best of California's rich poetic history.

A

SMALL

POEM

is a soul

like an opal

(from "grafting five")

If this is true, Of Indigo and Saffron is a soul like the Great Star of Africa.