Morse, Carl

An American poet and playwright who could be savagely critical of his compatriots, Carl Morse, who has died aged 73, had a deep, if no less critical, affection for the British. This was best encapsulated for me by the story he told of seeing a woman in the audience at the end of one of his plays in London, howling inconsolably. Having assured himself that this fit was brought on by his play - and not some personal anguish - Carl determined to return to Britain as often as possible.

During the 1980s and 90s, he exercised an important influence on a generation of British gay and lesbian writers and performing artists through his inclusion in anthologies printed by Gay Men's Press, the Oscars Press and Gay Sweatshop; performances of his work at the Oval House Theatre in London; and his co-editing of Gay and Lesbian Poetry in Our Time (1988). A selection of his work in Three New York Poets (1987) introduced his poetry to a British audience. Fruit of Your Loins (1995), which I had the honour of co-publishing, collected some of his most compelling writing for the stage. His plays, like his poetry, were fuelled by rage, leavened by humour and punctuated with a surprise tenderness.

Carl grew up in Maine, with a working-class background, then studied English and foreign languages at Yale. His first contact with British writers came during a Fulbright scholarship (1956-58), spent mostly in France. Working with a publishing house back in New York, he was especially proud of his correspondence with EM Forster while editing the first US publication of Forster's Alexandria in 1961. He was also an accomplished translator from French to English and vice versa. His work included a biography of Verlaine, the essays of André Maurois, and even the 1961 French version of Snow White.

Carl lived for many years at London Terrace, in Chelsea, New York, where he was one of the city's most accommodating hosts and Martini stirrers. His grandness, hilarity and furious resistance to intolerance will be missed. He is survived by his partner, Fred Trump, and the extended family he made for himself.

Carl Morse was a gay American writer with an affection for the British. Morse grew up in Maine, attended Yale University, and spent two years in France on a Fulbright scholarship, where he came in contact with many British writers.

During the 1980s and 90s, he exercised an important influence on a generation of British gay and lesbian writers and performing artists through his inclusion in anthologies printed by Gay Men's Press, the Oscars Press and Gay Sweatshop; performances of his work at the Oval House Theatre in London; and his co-editing of Gay and Lesbian Poetry in Our Time (1988). A selection of his work in Three New York Poets (1987) introduced his poetry to a British audience. Morse lived for many years in Chelsea, New York with his partner, Fred Trump. He died in 2008 at the age of 73.

Morse had a close relationship with the painter Fairfield Porter (1907-1975). Porter was a painter and critic from Southampton, N.Y., who established his reputation as a painter and as a writer in the 1950s. Porter was well-known in the New York art world, and enjoyed an elder status among a circle of younger artists and their many poet friends, now known as the New York School. Porter died in 1975 at age 68.