Life
Born in Washington, Indiana, McBride spent years traveling around Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Kentucky and Nebraska working in radio, before moving to San Francisco, California, in the early 1950s.
Kenneth Patchen introduced him to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who offered him a job as store manager at the City Lights Bookstore. He worked at City Lights for 16 years and became friends with Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and several other Beat Generation writers.
In 1964, McBride moved to the United Kingdom for six months to help "bohemianize" Better Books in London for Tony Godwin.
In 1967, City Lights moved their publishing operation to 1562 Grant Avenue, McBride ran this part of the business with his brother Bob McBride and Martin Broadley for several years.
He returned to England in 1969, where he worked as the director of independent book distributors McBride Bros. and Broadley, selling books in England and to the Continent.
In the summer of 1973, McBride and Bernard Stone hosted a "Fourth of July Party" for Allen Ginsberg at the Turret Bookshop, London. Ginsberg’s Fall of America had been published earlier that year, and it seemed appropriate to hold a reading on the birthday of American Independence. The party is commemorated in his biography of Ginsberg, Cometh With Clouds (Cherry Valley Editions 1982).
Then during the 1980s, McBride moved on to Australia. In 1988, he returned to the UK and settled in West Malvern, Worcestershire.
In November 1996, he was a guest at the Conegliano Poetry Festival, where he read his poetry alongside Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Andrey Voznesensky and Roger McGough. The festival was organised to honour City Lights and the Beats and to celebrate Allen Ginsberg's 70th birthday
In 2001 he collaborated with Celluloid on the "Last Beat" project, a live and recorded performance project that received airplay on BBC Radio 3's Late Junction. A UK tour followed, including a performance at the Birmingham ArtsFest.
In 2006 he headlined the "Words In Motion" stage at the Big Chill Festival at Eastnor Castle.
In January, 2009 McBride appeared at "The British Beat" event as part of the "Back On the Road" exhibition at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham. The exhibition featured the original manuscript scroll of Jack Kerouac's On the Road. The event was curated by Professor Dick Ellis, Head of American and Canadian Studies at Birmingham University, and also featured readings by Jim Burns, Ian McMillan, David Tipton and Camelia Ellias.
McBride lived in Colwall, Herefordshire, where he continued to write and perform until his death in August 2012, aged 84.
Read more about this topic: Dick Mc Bride (poet)
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