Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature (inscribed to Beat poet Michael McClure)
NY: Simon and Schuster, 1981. First edition. Hardcover. A nice association copy, inscribed on the front free endpaper: "For Michael and Joanna [McClure], Francis." Michael McClure is the seminal Beat poet who shared the stage with Gary Snyder and Allen Ginsberg at the famous Six Gallery Reading that kicked off the Beat generation. He remained in the center of that San Francisco scene, and Joanna McClure became an accomplished poet in her own right. Crick of course shared the Nobel Prize with James D. Watson and Maurice Wilkins for the discovery of DNA. As Crick details in a short essay he wrote for a 1975 symposium, "The Poetry of Michael McClure: A Scientist's View," he took a particular interest in McClure's poetry when he bought a broadside of McClure's "Peyote Poem" and pinned it up on his wall. Later Crick learned of McClure's particular interest in science and ecology and understood his attraction to this poetry: "Michael McClure is so at home in the fantastic world that science has conjured out of ourselves and our surroundings - a world which makes that of other cultures seem contrived and pedestrian - that he takes it all in his stride. . . . The worlds in which I myself live, the private world of personal reactions, the biological world (animals and plants and even bacteria chase each other through the poems), the world of the atom and molecule, the stars and the galaxies, are all there; and in between, above and below, stands man, the howling mammal, contrived out of "meat" by chance and necessity. If I were a poet I would write like Michael McClure - if only I had his talent." McClure and Crick became friends, and McClure later wrote a poem he dedicated to Crick, "Moire," published in the Paris Review. This book is an exploration of the possible origins and evolution of life that, as food for thought, takes as its starting place the idea that life may have traveled to earth rather than originated here, a theory known as "directed panspermia." The book "explores the process and events that would have to have taken place for life to survive and evolve. Life Itself therefore sketches the background against which any theory on the true origin of life must stand." A neat association copy bridging science, poetry, and the imagination that connects them. Near fine with a touch of rubbing to spine ends and a speckle of foxing to the top textblock face. In a fine jacket. Near fine / Fine. Item #1894
ISBN: 9780671255626
Price: $1,650.00 save 5% $1,567.50