Harold Norse Centennial Celebration

Café opens at 6:30 pm.

"Well, it was life," Beat generation poet Harold Norse told the Gay and Lesbian Review in 2003. "I thought everyone was living like that." From World War II era Manhattan, to the expatriate scenes of Tangier and Paris, to San Francisco during gay liberation, Norse documented his time in visionary poetry conveyed in a gutsy American vernacular. Longtime partner of poet and librettist Chester Kallman, Norse's friends included William Carlos Williams, W.H. Auden, and James Baldwin. On the hundredth anniversary of his Brooklyn birth, three Bay Area queer authors will discuss the impact of his life and work.

This series of centennial events sponsored by The Beat Museum held in San Francisco and Los Angeles offers a look back at Harold's legacy as an unheralded voice in Beat poetry with panel discussions with writers and artists who knew him. For more information visit http://www.kerouac.com/beat_event/harold-norse-centennial/

Panelists include:

• Kevin Killian, San Francisco poet and writer
• Regina Marler, editor of Queer Beats
• Todd Swindell, editor of Selected Poems of Harold Norse
• Moderated by Tate Swindell of Unrequited Records

Sponsored by The Beat Museum