Stephen Morse

Stephen Morse (January 14, 1945 - January 16, 2010) was an American poet, activist publisher and one of the original members of COSMEP (Committee of Small Magazine Editors and Publishers), the organization most closely associated with rise of the nation's small press movement in the 1960s and 70s. He edited and published The White Elephant (5 editions, 1970-73), and Juice Magazine (7 editions, 1974-82).
A native of the San Francisco Bay port city of Oakland, Stephen Morse attended San Francisco State University and socialized with Allen Ginsberg and other Beat Generation poets, including Robert Creeley, who taught at the school in the 1970s and held off-campus gatherings with Morse and others to discuss poetry. Many of Morse's early contacts in the field came from these meetings with Creeley who became a major influence on his career.
Morse subsequently served as associate professor at Minnesota's Brown College in Mendota Heights, a suburb of the Minneapolis - Saint Paul Twin Cities urban area, where he co-edited the online poetry magazine, Juice, with his wife, Minnesota poet Judy Brekke. In 2002 he was diagnosed with colon cancer and, in 2008, tests also revealed lung cancer. He died at the Marie Steiner Kelting Hospice Home in the city of Waconia, 25 miles from Minneapolis. Two days earlier he celebrated his 65th birthday with his wife, son Raymond and Raymond's wife and two daughters.

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