Description
Harold Norse occupies one of those fascinating positions in postwar American literature: unmistakably part of the Beat world, yet never quite reducible to it. He knew Allen Ginsberg before Howl, lived at the legendary Beat Hotel in Paris alongside William S. Burroughs and Gregory Corso, experimented with the cut-up method, and was mentored by William Carlos Williams, who famously praised Norse as “the best poet of your generation.” Norse would also become an important voice in gay liberation poetry, writing openly about sexuality and identity long before such candor became commonplace in American verse.
Karma Circuit grew directly out of Norse’s expatriate years, with poems originating during his travels through Italy, Paris, Athens and Hydra. The collection first appeared in London in 1967 as a limited edition from Nothing Doing in London; this 1973 Panjandrum Press edition is the first American edition and includes a new preface by Norse. For Bukowski collectors, Norse is especially interesting: in 1969 Penguin paired Charles Bukowski, Philip Lamantia and Harold Norse together in Penguin Modern Poets 13, and Norse and Bukowski maintained a long correspondence later collected as Fly Like a Bat Out of Hell. Karma Circuit is a terrific artifact from a writer who moved between the Beats, the literary underground and San Francisco counterculture while always remaining distinctly his own man.
A great little piece of Beat-era San Francisco—and a book that deserves considerably more attention than it usually gets.
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