Join us in celebration of beloved poet Harold Norse
as we remember his life and work.
Norse’s friends and admirers will pay homage to this master poet.
Led by Norse’s longtime friends and fellow poets
NEELI CHERKOVSKI MEL CLAY A.D. WINANS
July 12, 2009 2:00pm
The Beat Museum, 540 Broadway (at Columbus)
North Beach, San Francisco
Just returned from Paris. Have a shot of the plaque on 9 Git le Coeur commemorating those at The Beat Hotel with Hal the second name listed. Read The Beat Hotel by Barry Miles while staying in Paris. Stopped into Shakespeare & Company and bought Clellon’s “Go”, Burrough’s “Naked Lunch” and a version of “Howl” I hadn’t seen before. Then I re-read Hal’s “Beat Hotel” and it all became clear. I’ve discarded my now-arcane version of my book and have started all over using a more direct/first person approach. The kind of stuff Hal prodded me on to do. He said it was my best style. Man, I wish I had him here to tell me this stuff himself, now, today! Gotta keep him top-of-mind and not like last Thursday’s newspaper thrown into the recycling dumpster. Anybody and everybody reading this post knows how great Hal was. No need to repeat the obvious. The memories. Yes, the memories he provided…and guidance…and laughs. Geez, how his stories could make you laugh! He introduced me to dark roast Italian coffee which I still drink to this day. Here’s to bats flying in the window, postcards from Chinatown falling from the ceiling and the only rats to avoid work for TIME. Cheers, Hal. Au revoir — Lucas
Talk about him! Share his works, his words, tales of Harold..I wrote a play about him
a fantasia
The title says it all
“Future Sanskrit.”
Last year I spent my birthday with him January 19
This year I was supposed to spend his birthday–July 6–with him..how do you book passage to a star?…
I encountered Harold Norse’s work first in the online poetry journal Abalone Moon. What a writer he was. Since then I’ve tracked his work in various Beat & other outlaw poetry collections, even found one of his books in a used book store. It’s so sad that he’s gone. What a gift he left us.
I was lucky enough to spend time with Hal from the fall of 96, when I first met him, til I left SF in the fall of 98. I was fortunate enough to publish Hal’s masterpiece “Sniffing Keyholes” as a chapbook in 1998. Even better was the friendship we established over those 2 years and beyond. I’ll miss Hal very much.