is solitary, as pure poet- a man reduced to
lowliness in poetry, without worldly distractions-
and a man become one with his poetry. The
solitary space which Weiners, “the pure poet”
occupies is eccentric enough to categorize him as a
contemporary, urban shaman of his time.
The purity and oneness are also shamanic
elements worthy of further consideration. Michael
McClure is to a poet of the body, he writes "I am
the body, the animal, the poem / is a gesture of
mine". By embodying the animism of the animal,
McClure embodies the shamanic. He also states
that "the prime purpose of my poetry is
liberation" and that the quote "for everything that
lives is holy" came not from Ginsberg but from
McClure's rendering of Blake. The Shaman sees life
force in all things and seeks to liberate others. The
other significant aspect of the shaman is the
presence of a spirit world. In McClure's poem "the
child" he states "who were the lion men who
walked in my dreams…in a room whose walls were
miracles”. Here McClure evokes one of man's most
ancient symbols, that of the lion man, who
surrounds his pre-awakened state. The process of
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