Michael McClure was born in Marysville, Kansas but spent much of his childhood in Seattle. He moved to San Francisco in the 1950s where he joined a poetry workshop lead by Robert Duncan, and later went on to perform at the Six Gallery reading with Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder.
 
McClure is still an active poet, journalist, playwright and novelist, with work regularly appearing in Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair. He has also worked as a documentary maker and appeared in several films including Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz in 1978.