McClure, Michael

Broadside: "The Stitching"

Santa Barbara, CA, USA: Table-Talk Press, 1986. Limited Edition. Single Sheet. Signed and inscribed by Michael McClure to Gregory Stephenson. "ECRASEZ L’INFÂME! AND DAMN THE SYSTEM CRUSHING US, / GODDAMN THE FEAR THAT HALTS / our Art and Love and twists into the robot shapes / that spray out baths of lies / and drizzle sewage in / the spirit’s ears and eyes.” This poem by Michael McClure (1932-2020), a primary poet & playwright of the San Francisco Renaissance, the Beat Generation & beyond, opens with the French phrase, ”Ecrasez l’infâme,” which translates to “crush the infamous.” This phrase is attributed to the French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778), and he was referring to the corrupt Catholic church. It has come to be a symbol of secularism, free inquiry, and resistance to oppression. McClure’s invocation of the phrase in “The Stitching” likely refers to the efforts to censor the writing of the Beat Generation and impede mainstream publication efforts. Gregory Stephenson (b. 1947) is the author of Friendly and Flowing Savage: The Literary Legend of Neal Cassady (1987) and The Daybreak Boys: Essays on the Literature of the Beat Generation (1990). He is now a professor of American literature and history at the University of Copenhagen and our esteemed colleague at the European Beat Studies Network. This limited printing of “The Stitching” was “Designed and printed by J. Mudfoot for Table-Talk Press,” a small press located in Santa Barbara, CA, though Judyl Mudfoot was the proprietor of Mudborn Press. The Santa Barbara art and literature scene collaborated on the printing of San Francisco’s iconic McClure, and this print represents this collaboration as well as that of Stephenson and McClure, who was an invaluable source for Stephenson’s research. This copy is inscribed over McClure’s printed name in thin, black ink: “For Gregory Stephenson / warmest, / [signed] Michael McClure”. Single sheet (appx. 9 3/8” x 13 1/4”): limited first edition, “in an edition of 100 signed copies,” of which “This is number [handwritten] 40”; in relatively good-to-near-fine condition with severe creasing where previously (and clumsily) folded into eighths; mild bumping to the fine edges and corners; faint embossment of an infinity symbol with some text that is obscured by the printed copyright text;. Good-Near Fine. [Item #7642]

Price: $80.00