Goodnight, Sweet Poet

Michael McClure 1932-2020

I awoke this morning to the news that Michael McClure had died two days before. Michael accepted me and and encouraged me at a dark and difficult moment of my life. Homeless and hungry, I jumped at the chance to build sets for his play, “The Charbroiled Chinchilla”.

here’s an excerpt from my upcoming book, Lightbulb Coffee:

I looked up McClure’s address in the telephone directory and walked to the upper Haight. I found the house and went up the steps. I rang the bell, and the poet answered the door.

“Hi, Mr. McClure, my name is John Schnick and I’m an artist and I heard that you need help to finish the sets for your new play…” I said, then took a breath.

A hint of a smile appeared on his handsome Irish face, and he invited me in. I followed him to a sunny upstairs room.

“This is my wife, Joanna,” he said.

An absolutely beautiful woman put down her book and stood up from the sofa she’d been curled upon.

“This is John,” said McClure. “He wants to work on the sets for The Charbroiled Chinchilla.”

“I’ll fix some tea,” said Joanna, and disappeared.

Michael told me about the trilogy of plays he’d written, and when Joanna returned with a pot of Oolong, I told them both about surviving the vampire bats of Nayarit. I learned that Joanna, also a poet, had been at the Six Gallery reading—the birth of the Beat movement—along with Ginsberg, Snyder, McClure, and Whalen.

After a phone call to the set designer, the playwright turned to me and said, “Welcome aboard.”

Generous, funny, and talented, he’ll always be my hero. Goodnight, sweet poet.

a poster for The Charbroiled Chinchilla, 1969