Harold. Hotel Nirvana.

by NORSE

£400 · Offered by Henry Sotheran Ltd

NORSE, Harold. Hotel Nirvana. San Francisco: City Lights Books . 1974. Small 4to; white front cover with cover photograph of Harold Norse by Neil Hollier; white and black back cover featuring Pocket Poet Series number 32 and quotes from Ginsberg and Bukowski; pp. [4], 94; slight rubbing to the spine, spine a little bit revealed (or possibly glued?) on pastedown; otherwise near fine. First edition, first printing, signed by Harold Norse. "Friends/ if you wish to survive/ I would not recommend/ Love"- Harold Norse ("I Would Not Recommend Love"). A leading gay liberation poet, Harold Norse exercised his talent for manipulating words from a young age; creating the pseudonym Norse by rearranging the letters in his original surname. A protégé of William Carlos Williams, he is renown for his ability to use the American idiom of colloquial speech to radically explore free sexuality and identity. Between 1960-63, Norse lived in the infamous "Beat Hotel" alongside as powerful personalities as Gregory Corso, William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg. It was here that Norse would explore the "cut-up writing projects" he developed alongside Burroughs, an artistic invention which would inspire the format of his novella Beat Hotel (published in 1983). Prior to this unusually near fine copy of Hotel Nirvana Selected Poems 1953-73, Norse had published in smaller magazines which were associated with the Mimeograph revolution of the 1960's and 70's and which appear in this collection. This refers to

• Printing: first
• Binding: Hardcover

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