Psychedelic Substances, Creativity, and Body
The rise of psychedelic use in the 1960s struck controversy across the United States. Yet, the introduction of many drugs, such as LSD, for artists created the formulation of many of today’s most valued works. Written by Beat Generation poet Michael McClure, “Peyote Poem” explored the experience of taking peyote. The poem utilizes synecdoche to demonstrate the alteration of McClure’s consciousness.
“COLOR IS REALITY! THE EYE IS A MATCHFLAME” (McClure 271).
The synecdoche, “eye,” gives recognition to McClure’s new way of thinking. Being high did not withdraw him from reality. Instead, it brought him closer by enhancing the tool needed to see reality, the eyes. McClure, himself, wrote in his 1956 book, Passage, that he was “experimenting with psychedelics as a means of psychic liberation” (264). In doing so, he found a separation between socially constructed reality and his reality. McClure writes,
“I am separate from gloom and beauty. I see all…” (266).
The “all” McClure refers to here and other instances across the poem is the answer to questions he once had unanswered. He no longer relied on societal standards to answers his questions of joy, love, time, body, etc. In his words, “I KNOW EVERYTHING” (265). That is to say, he now has “all” the knowledge he needs to answer worldly questions. Consequent to this, McClure had reached a consciousness poets of his generation aspired to obtain.
McClure, Michael. “Peyote Poem.” The Portable Beat Reader, edited by Ann Charters, Penguin Books, 1992, pp. 264–287.
