Harold Norse dies at 92; Beat poet was a literary beacon in the gay community
Harold Norse, a San Francisco poet often associated with the Beats, who was mentor or peer to many of the greatest talents in 20th century American literature, including Tennessee Williams, James Baldwin, Allen Ginsberg and Charles Bukowski, has died. He was 92.
Norse died of natural causes Monday at an assisted-living facility in San Francisco, according to his conservator, attorney Mark Vermeulen.
A pioneer of poetry written in plain American English who was called "the best poet of your generation" by William Carlos Williams, Norse never attained the recognition that he and others felt was his due. A literary beacon in the gay community who risked ostracism by writing openly of his sexual adventures in the 1940s and '50s, Norse exiled himself to Europe for 15 years before returning to the United States and publishing such volumes as "Hotel Nirvana" (1974), which was nominated for a National Book Award, "Carnivorous Saint" (1977) and "In the Hub of the Fiery Force: Collected Poems" (2003).
"He was essentially an expatriate voice in American poetry," said Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the poet and bookseller who published a volume of Norse's poems in the mid-1970s. "He had an original voice because he ventriloquized what a lot of other poets were saying. . . . He could sound in one poem like T.S. Eliot . . . or in another poem like William Burroughs."
Norse's life reads like a history of modern American literature. At a reading in 1939, he flirted with W.H. Auden and became his personal secretary, a job he held until Auden took up with Norse's lover. He met Ginsberg riding a New York subway in 1944, more than a decade before Ginsberg attained international notoriety with the Beat classic "Howl." Later, Norse caroused with Burroughs, Gregory Corso and Brion Gysin at the Parisian flophouse that became famous as the Beat Hotel.
Norse was born out of wedlock on July 6, 1916, in New York City and raised by his mother after his father disappeared. He earned a bachelor's degree at Brooklyn College in 1938 and a master's from New York University in 1951. The following year, his mentor, William Carlos Williams, arranged a reading for Norse at the Museum of Modern Art. His work appeared in prestigious publications, including Poetry magazine, the Paris Review and Saturday Review."He was essentially an expatriate voice in American poetry," said Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the poet and bookseller who published a volume of Norse's poems in the mid-1970s. "He had an original voice because he ventriloquized what a lot of other poets were saying. . . . He could sound in one poem like T.S. Eliot . . . or in another poem like William Burroughs."
Norse's life reads like a history of modern American literature. At a reading in 1939, he flirted with W.H. Auden and became his personal secretary, a job he held until Auden took up with Norse's lover. He met Ginsberg riding a New York subway in 1944, more than a decade before Ginsberg attained international notoriety with the Beat classic "Howl." Later, Norse caroused with Burroughs, Gregory Corso and Brion Gysin at the Parisian flophouse that became famous as the Beat Hotel.
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posted by Tom Jackson @ Saturday, June 13, 2009
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