Beat writer Michael McClure has died

A key figure in the Beat poetry movement has passed away.

Michael McClure, one of the poets who took place in the Six Gallery readings that launched the San Francisco Renaissance, died Monday at age eighty-seven.

McClure had suffered a stroke last year, and the cause of his death was lingering complications, his wife told the New York Times.

The Times reports that McClure had initially been asked to organized the now-historic poetry reading, but that because his first wife was pregnant, he accepted Allen Ginsburg’s offer to take the lead.

McClure still claimed his share of literary fame in the years following the event, including for a highly controversial (and explicit) play The Beard and for contributing the basis of the lyrics to Janis Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz.”

Read more about his career in the New York Times obituary.