Harold Norse’s poetry provides us with a wonderful example of how, as Andrew Epstein argued, “for post-war avant-garde poets, poetry is the continuation of friendship by other means.” And yet, Norse’s poetry also pushes back against ideations of friendship and community. Visible throughout Norse’s work is a creative tug-of-war between an idealised and radically queer non-conformity and a similarly idealized commitment to avant-garde friendship networks antithetical to agonistic models.