“This was still a time of cold, gray silence, but inside the coffeehouses of North Beach, poets and friends sensed the atmosphere of liberation.” Allen Ginsberg once referred to critically acclaimed Beat poet Michael McClure’s poetry as “a blob of protoplasmic energy,” while Jack Kerouac called McClure’s long poem “Dark Brown” the “most fantastic poem in America.” Gary Snyder stated McClure was “closer to [William] Blake than anybody else writing.” As the age of 22, McClure gave his first poetry reading at the legendary Six Gallery in San Francisco on October 7, 1955, the night Ginsberg first read “Howl.” For many years, McClure toured extensively with Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek.