Harold Norse (July 6, 1916, New York City – June 8, 2009, San Francisco) was an American writer who created a body of work using the American idiom of everyday language and images. One of the expatriate artists of the

Beat generation The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generatio ...

, Norse was widely published and anthologized.

Life

Born Harold Rosen to an unmarried Lithuanian Jewish immigrant in Brooklyn. In the early 1950s, he came up with the new last name, Norse, by rearranging the letters in Rosen. He received his B.A. from

Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus. Being New York City's first publ ...

in 1938, where he edited the literary magazine. Norse met Chester Kallman in 1938, and then became a part of W. H. Auden's "inner circle" when Auden moved to the U.S. in 1939. (Kallman and Auden later became lifelong partners.) However, Norse soon found himself allied with William Carlos Williams, who rated Norse the 'best poet of isgeneration.' Norse broke with traditional verse forms and embraced a more direct, conversational language. Soon Norse was publishing in ''Poetry,'' ''The Saturday Review'' and ''The Paris Review.'' He got his master's degree in literature from New York University in 1951. His first book of poems, ''The Undersea Mountain'', was published in 1953. From 1954 to 1959 Norse lived and wrote in Italy. He penned the experimental cut-up novel ''

Beat Hotel The Beat Hotel was a small, run-down hotel of 42 rooms at 9 Rue Gît-le-Cœur in the Latin Quarter of Paris, notable chiefly as a residence for members of the Beat poetry movement of the mid-20th century. Overview It was a "class 13" hotel, mean ...

'' in 1960 while living in Paris with William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso from 1959 to 1963. He traveled to Tangier, where he stayed with

Jane Jane may refer to: * Jane (given name), a feminine given name * Jane (surname), related to the given name Film and television * ''Jane'' (1915 film), a silent comedy film directed by Frank Lloyd * ''Jane'' (2016 film), a South Korean drama fil ...

and Paul Bowles. Returning to America in 1968, Norse arrived in Venice, California, near Charles Bukowski. He moved to San Francisco in 1972 and lived in the Mission District of San Francisco for the last 35 years of his life. ''Memoirs of a Bastard Angel'' traces Norse's life and literary career with Auden,

Christopher Isherwood Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood (26 August 1904 – 4 January 1986) was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist. His best-known works include '' Goodbye to Berlin'' (1939), a semi-autobiographical ...

, E. E. Cummings, Tennessee Williams, William Carlos Williams,

James Baldwin James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer. He garnered acclaim across various media, including essays, novels, plays, and poems. His first novel, '' Go Tell It on the Mountain'', was published in 1953; de ...

Dylan Thomas Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer whose works include the poems "Do not go gentle into that good night" and "And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" ''Under ...

, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Paul Bowles, Charles Bukowski,

Robert Graves Captain Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was a British poet, historical novelist and critic. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were both Celtic ...

and

Anaïs Nin Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell (February 11, 1903 – January 14, 1977; , ) was a French-born American diarist, essayist, novelist, and writer of short stories and erotica. Born to Cuban parents in France, Nin was the d ...

. With ''Carnivorous Saint: Gay Poems 1941–1976'' Norse became a leading gay liberation poet. His collected poems, ''In the Hub of the Fiery Force'', appeared in 2003. Norse is a two-time NEA grant recipient, and National Poetry Association award winner. Norse was gay and his poetry reflected his sexuality.

Works

* ''The Undersea Mountain'', Denver:

Swallow Press Ohio University Press (OUP), founded in 1947, is the oldest and largest scholarly press in the state of Ohio. It is a department of Ohio University that publishes under its own name and the imprint Swallow Press. History The press publishes a ...

, 1953 * ''The Roman Sonnets of Giuseppe Gioachino Belli,'' Highlands, North Carolina: Jargon 38, 1960 * ''The Dancing Beasts'', New York:

Macmillan MacMillan, Macmillan, McMillen or McMillan may refer to: People * McMillan (surname) * Clan MacMillan, a Highland Scottish clan * Harold Macmillan, British statesman and politician * James MacMillan, Scottish composer * William Duncan MacMillan ...

, 1962 * ''Karma Circuit'', London: Nothing Doing in London, 1966 * ''Penguin Modern Poets 13'', Charles Bukowski, Philip Lamantia and Harold Norse, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969 * ''Bastard Angel Magazine'', Issue #1, Edited by Harold Norse, San Francisco, Spring 1972 * ''Karma Circuit'', San Francisco: Panjandrum Press, 1973 * ''Bastard Angel Magazine'', Issue #2, Edited by Harold Norse, San Francisco, Spring 1974 * ''Hotel Nirvana'', San Francisco:

City Lights ''City Lights'' is a 1931 American silent romantic comedy film written, produced, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin. The story follows the misadventures of Chaplin's Tramp as he falls in love with a blind girl (Virginia Cherrill) and ...

, 1974 *''I See America Daily'', San Francisco: Mother's Hen, 1974 * ''Bastard Angel Magazine'', Issue #3, Edited by Harold Norse, San Francisco, Fall 1974 * ''Beat Hotel'', German translation by Carl Weissner, Augsburg, Federal Republic of Germany: Maro Verlag, 1975, 1995 * ''Carnivorous Saint: Gay Poems 1941–1976'', San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press, 1977 * ''Beat Hotel'' (the English original), San Diego: Atticus Press, 1983 * ''Mysteries of Magritte'', San Diego: Atticus Press, 1984 * ''Beat Hotel'', Italian translation by Giulio Saponaro, Italy: Stamperia della Frontiera, 1985 * ''The Love Poems 1940–1985'', Trumansburg, NY: The Crossing Press, 1986 * ''Memoirs of a Bastard Angel'', preface by

, New York: William Morrow and Company, 1989 * ''The American Idiom: A Correspondence'', with William Carlos Williams, San Francisco: Bright Tyger Press, 1990 * ''In the Hub of the Fiery Force, Collected Poems of Harold Norse 1934–2003'', New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 2003 * ''I Am Going to Fly Through Glass: The Selected Poems of Harold Norse'', edited by Todd Swindell, Greenfield, MA: Talisman House, 2014 * ''Karmakreis'', German translation of ''Karma Circuit'' by Ralf Zühlke, Wenzendorf: Stadtlichter Presse, 2016

Anthologies

*''New Directions'' 13, ed. James Laughlin, 1951 *''Mentor'', New American Library, 1958 *''City Lights Journal'', ed. L. Ferlinghetti, #1, 1963 *'' Best Poems of 1968: Borestone Mountain Poetry Awards'', ed. Hildegarde Flanner, 1969 *''City Lights Anthology'', ed. Ferlinghetti, City Lights 1974 *''A Geography of Poets'', ed. Edward Field, Bantam 1979 *''

The Penguin Book of Homosexual Verse ''The Penguin Book of Homosexual Verse'' (1983) is an anthology of poetry dealing with "a history of the different ways in which homosexual people have been seen or have seen themselves", from classical antiquity to the contemporary period. It w ...

'', ed. Stephen Coote, Penguin 1983 *''Gay and Lesbian Poetry in Our Time: An Anthology'', ed. Carl Morse and Joan Larkin, St. Martin's Press, 1988 *''An Ear to the Ground'', ed. Harris & Aguero, University of Chicago Press, 1989 *''Big Sky Mind: Buddhism & the Beat Generation'', ed. Carole Tonkinson, Riverhead Books, NY, 1995 *''City Lights Pocket Poets Anthology'', City Lights, 1995 *''The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry'', ed. Alan Kaufman and S.A. Griffin, Thunder's Mouth Press, 1999

Resources

* The Harold Norse Papers (1934–1980, 8,000 items) are archived at the Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington. Norse Mss. 1934–1980, Lilly Library Manuscript Collections
/ref> * Harold Norse, James Baldwin, Anais Nin, William S. Burroughs, William Carlos Williams, Paul Carroll, Jack Hirschman, "Harold Norse Special Issue", ''Olé,'' No. 5 (Bensenville, IL: Open Skull Press, n.d., 1966?)

References

External links

haroldnorse.com, Memorial Web site with poems and photos
*
L.A. Times ObituaryS.F. Chronicle ObituaryGuardian U.K. ObituaryRemembering Harold Norse
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norse, Harold Brooklyn College alumni New York University alumni Writers from Brooklyn American gay writers Beat Generation writers American expatriates in France American expatriates in Italy American expatriates in Morocco American people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent Outlaw poets LGBT Jews American LGBT poets Jewish American poets 1916 births 2009 deaths 20th-century American Jews 21st-century American Jews 20th-century LGBT people