McClure’s Separate Consciousness and the Examination of Parts of a Whole
In his “Peyote Poem”, Michael McClure uses synecdoche to reflect the world as someone high on the drug would experience it. This experience of the world reflects McClure’s philosophy of “the separate consciousness” (Charters 264) and how important the parts of the whole are.
One example of synecdoche is when the speaker says that they “look into the blue-grey gloom of dreariness” (McClure 267). This one quote serves so many purposes. Firstly, it provides a vivid sensory description of what the speaker is seeing and experiencing. It informs the reader not only what the colors of the sky are, but also the feelings of anxiety and fear that the sky fills the speaker with. Both this vivid perception and feelings of fear and anxiety are characteristic of the negative effects peyote can have. This description of the parts of the sky also leads to the speaker’s feeling of isolation and separation from the universe, which culminates a few lines down when the speaker declares “I am separate.” (McClure 266). This instance of synecdoche not only examines the parts of the whole of what the speaker perceives, but also the parts of the whole of the experience and symptoms of peyote, and the parts of the whole of the universe itself. The speaker is examining his role as a separate part of one big thing, and what it means for the two to come together. Further, by not explicitly saying that what he sees is the sky, the speaker essentializes the sky into its parts, and thus puts the separate parts above the culmination of them together into the whole.
This is the philosophy that McClure himself had. He said:
“I am aware of the creature that is stomach and the one that is the solar plexus and the one that is the brain and chest and all the fragmented creatures of my being that form the totality” (Charters 264)
He advocated for an examination and acknowledgment of the separate nature of all the parts that come together to make something whole. Through his poetry, he is able to do this. The motif of parts of a whole is established, emphasized, and enhanced with the use of synecdoche and the choice to depict the experience of a peyote high.
McClure, Michael. “Peyote Poem.” The Portable Beat Reader, edited by Ann Charters, Penguin Books, 1992, pp. 265–273.
“Michael McClure.” The Portable Beat Reader, edited by Ann Charters, Penguin Books, 1992, pg. 264.
