Running with the Underdog

Between the 1950s and the 1970s, Harold Norse became a key figure in a generation of American expatriate writers whose work was mainly published through a transatlantic network of little magazines. Referred to as the Mimeo, or Mimeograph Revolution, its publications were essential outlets for writing that was risk-taking in style and content. It also supported innovations such as the cut-up process, which Norse contributed to while living at the Beat Hotel in Paris. Norse’s sojourns in Europe–Italy, France, Greece and North Africa–saw his poetry and prose featured in a number of fugitive, now legendary magazines such as Gnaoua, My Own Mag, Ole, Residu and Big Table. Having at first sought success as an acclaimed mainstream poet, Norse’s recognition and literary destiny was found among avant-garde outsiders and in gay liberation.