Harold Norse (1916–2009) became a part of W.H. Auden’s group of friends and writers after Auden moved from London to New York back in the late 1930s. Norse lived for several years in Italy, lived in the famous “Beat Hotel” in Paris with his friends Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and William S. Burroughs, lived in Tangier as guest of the writers Paul and Jane Bowles, and when he moved to Venice, California, he became friends with Charles Bukowski. Norse was most closely associated with the Beat poets and spent the last many years of his life in San Francisco. William Carlos Williams spoke of Norse as the best poet of his generation. He was also one of the first openly gay poets in the 1950s and ’60s. Norse’s memoir is Memoirs of a Bastard Angel: A Fifty-Year Literary and Erotic Odyssey. This poem is taken from In the Hub of the Fiery Force: Collected Poems 1934–2003, published by Thunder’s Mouth Press.
Harold Norse (1916–2009) became a part of W.H. Auden’s group of friends and writers after Auden moved from London to New York back in the late 1930s. Norse lived for several years in Italy, lived in the famous “Beat Hotel” in Paris with his friends Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and William S. Burroughs, lived in Tangier as guest of the writers Paul and Jane Bowles, and when he moved to Venice, California, he became friends with Charles Bukowski. Norse was most closely associated with the Beat poets and spent the last many years of his life in San Francisco. William Carlos Williams spoke of Norse as the best poet of his generation. He was also one of the first openly gay poets in the 1950s and ’60s. Norse’s memoir is Memoirs of a Bastard Angel: A Fifty-Year Literary and Erotic Odyssey. This poem is taken from In the Hub of the Fiery Force: Collected Poems 1934–2003, published by Thunder’s Mouth Press.
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