A CELEBRATION OF THE LIFE OF
HAROLD NORSE
Cornelia Street
Café, NYC
July 20, 2009
Audio of the Celebration is at the foot of the page.

Norse
w Fiery Book 1993 © Betty Best
Excerpt from "the statue of liberty is a tourist in the alps"
from In The Hub Of The Fiery Force: Collected Poems 1934-2003
(©Thunder's Mouth Press, 2003).
Kerouac,
you're nothing now
only a name - I shake your ghostly hand
we'll meet in oblivion
I'll be in the void soon
but in San Francisco
I type yr unpublished pomes
Allen gave me, his beard gone grey
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my
image stared
from TV the other
night & I
stared back
shocked - who's
the strange
guy??
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went
home to bed
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thinking
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Jack
how's the void? we'll meet
there!
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nah,
we'll never meet!
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we're
victims, destroyed
by everything
by time, by politicians,
psychiatrists, doctors, bad air, bad food,
booze, hunger, sex, lovers, no love, money
.
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flipflops
of planetary woe!
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no
time in the abyss
no time to play with form
as we scream in the dark
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when
void is formless
what's form? |
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Norse
in SF 1981 © Ira Cohen
by Steve Koenig
A celebration of Harold Norse, who died June 8, 2009, was co-curated by poet
and Beat scholars Valery Oisteanu and Kat Georges. The line up of readers was
made up of Norse's friends, colleagues and fans Ira Cohen, Judith Malina, Max
Blagg, Jeffrey Cyphers Wright, Steve Dalachinsky, Shelley Miller, Angelo Verga,
Tom Walker, George Wallace.
The basement room
in Cornelia Street Café, a narrow, cozy space which regularly presents
poetry and music, had the feeling of a warm living room in a friend's home,
filled with lively, chatty, jocular banter.
Oisteanu has one
of those fabulously resonant, basso voices that projects across a room even
when sotto voce. The recording begins with his introduction of the guests, and
I pushed the record button seconds after he jumped in joshing poet Ira Cohen.
If you listen closely, you can hear the excited laughter and cheering of the
delightful Judith Malina, co-founder of The Living Theater, good-natured heckling
from and back to Acoustic Levitation's mascot poet, Steve Dalachinsky, and from
time to time the chime of modern cameras.
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A CELEBRATION
OF THE LIFE OF HAROLD NORSE
Part
One: Opening Remarks by Valery Oisteanu. 7:30.
Listen
Now
Or
Download
Here
Part Two: Valery Oisteanu, Angelo Verga, George Wallace, Ira Cohen. 46:11.
Listen
Now
Or
Download
Here
Part Three:
Judith Malina, Max Blagg, Jeffrey Cyphers Wright, Steve Dalachinsky, Shelley
Miller, Tom Walker. 46: 51.
Listen
Now
Or
Download
Here
Recording ©(p)2009Steven Koenig. All rights revert to the individual
performers.
haroldnorse.com
corneliastreetcafe.com
threeroomspress.blogspot.com
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