Stephen Rodefer (November 20, 1940 – August 22, 2015) was an American

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

and

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

who lived in Paris and London. Born in

Bellaire, Ohio Bellaire is a village (United States)#Ohio, village in Belmont County, Ohio, United States, along the Ohio River. The population was 3,870 at the 2020 census, having peaked in 1920. It is part of the Wheeling metropolitan area. The Bellaire Brid ...

, he knew many of the early beat and Black Mountain poets, including

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of th ...

Gregory Corso Gregory Nunzio Corso (March 26, 1930 – January 17, 2001) was an American poet. Along with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs, he was part of the Beat Generation, as well as one of its youngest members. Early life Born N ...

Charles Olson Charles John Olson (27 December 1910 – 10 January 1970) was a second generation modernist United States poetry, American poet who was a link between earlier Literary modernism, modernist figures such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams an ...

, and Robert Creeley. Rodefer was one of the original

Language poets The Language poets (or L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E (magazine), ''L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E'' poets, after the magazine of that name) are an avant-garde group or tendency in United States poetry that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The poets included: Berna ...

and taught widely, including: UNM, SUNY Buffalo, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, San Francisco State, and the American University of Paris. Rodefer was the first American poet to be offered a Fellowship at Cambridge University. Stephen Rodefer's papers were purchased by

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

and are on permanent view there. Rodefer died at the age of 74 in Paris in August, 2015. With graduate degrees from the State University of New York (SUNY) Buffalo and from San Francisco State University, Rodefer was the author of ''One or Two Love Poems from the White World,'' ''The Bell Clerk's Tears Keep Flowing,'' ''Four Lectures'' (which was a winner of the American Poetry Center’s Annual Book Award), ''Oriflamme Day'' (with poet Benjamin Friedlander), ''Emergency Measures'', ''Passing Duration,'' ''Leaving,'' ''Erasures'', ''Left Under A Cloud'', ''Call It Thought'', and ''Mon Canard,'' among other titles. His essay on canon-formation, "The Age in its Cage: A Note to Mr Mendelssohn on the Sociologic Allegory of Literature and the Deformation of the Canonymous", was featured in the

Chicago Review ''Chicago Review'' is a student-run literary magazine founded in 1946 and published quarterly in the Humanities Division at the University of Chicago. The magazine features contemporary poetry, fiction, and criticism, often publishing works in tr ...

, and that literary journal published a special issue devoted to his work in 2008. In addition to Villon, Rodefer has published translations of

Sappho Sappho (; ''Sapphṓ'' ; Aeolic Greek ''Psápphō''; ) was an Ancient Greek poet from Eresos or Mytilene on the island of Lesbos. Sappho is known for her lyric poetry, written to be sung while accompanied by music. In ancient times, Sapph ...

, selections from the Greek Anthology,

Catullus Gaius Valerius Catullus (; ), known as Catullus (), was a Latin neoteric poet of the late Roman Republic. His surviving works remain widely read due to their popularity as teaching tools and because of their personal or sexual themes. Life ...

Lucretius Titus Lucretius Carus ( ; ; – October 15, 55 BC) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem '' De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, which usually is t ...

Dante Dante Alighieri (; most likely baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri; – September 14, 1321), widely known mononymously as Dante, was an Italian Italian poetry, poet, writer, and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called ...

Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet, essayist, translator and art critic. His poems are described as exhibiting mastery of rhythm and rhyme, containing an exoticism inherited from the Romantics, an ...

, Rilke, Frank O’Hara and the Cuban poet Noel Nicola. His graphic work, ''LANGUAGE PICTURES,'' has been exhibited in recent years in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, Paris and Prague. At the time of his death he was translating

for a collection to be published next year, titled ''Baudelaire OH/Fever Flowers: Les fleurs du val''.

Education

1959-63

Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zepha ...

Amherst, Massachusetts Amherst () is a city in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Connecticut River valley. Amherst has a council–manager form of government, and is considered a city under Massachusetts state law. Amherst is one of several Massach ...

, Art History & Literature 1959-61 SUNY Buffalo, New York, Graduate Studies in Poetry and Literature

Books

Poetry * 2008: ''Call it Thought: Selected Poems.'' Carcanet, Manchester (UK) * 2000: ''Left Under a Cloud.'' Alfred David Editions, London. * 2000: ''Mon Canard: Six Poems.'' The Figures, Great Barrington, MA * 1996: ''Answer to Dr Agathon.'' Poetical Histories, Cambridge (UK) * 1994: ''Erasers.'' Equipage, Cambridge (UK) * 1992: ''Leaving.'' Equipage, Cambridge (UK) * 1992: ''Double Imperative Landscapes: Daydreams of Frascati'', with Chip Sullivan (Berkeley, CA: Sake Forebear) * 1991: ''Passing Duration.'' Burning Deck, Providence, RI * 1987: ''Emergency Measures'' (Great Barrington, MA: The Figures) * 1984: ''Oriflamme Day'', with Benjamin Friedlander (Oakland, CA: House of K) * 1982: ''Four Lectures'' (Berkeley, CA : The Figures
view facsimile or download reading copy
* 1981: ''Plane Debris'' (Berkeley, CA: Tuumba Press) * 1978: ''The Bell Clerk’s Tears Keep Flowing'' (Berkeley, CA: The Figures) * 1976: ''One or Two Love Poems from the White World'' (Placitas, NM: Duende) * 1965: ''The Knife.'' Island Press, Toronto. Translation * 2008: ''Hölderlin'', with Nick Walker (UK: Barque Editions) * 2008: ''Baudelaire, Fever Flowers: les fleurs du val'' (UK: Barque Editions) * 1994: ''Rilke I IV VI'', with Geoff Ward and Ian Patterson (Cambridge, UK: Poetical Histories) * 1991: 'Dante: Selections from the Inferno' in ''Passing Duration'' * 1985: ''Orpheus'' ilke(San Francisco: Tuscany Alley) * 1985: ''Safety, translations from Sappho and the Greek Anthology'' (Berkeley, CA: Margery Cantor) * 1976: ''Villon'', by Jean Calais en name(San Francisco: Pick Pocket Series) * 1973: ''After Lucretius'' (University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT) Criticism * 2008: ''The Monkeys Donut: Essays in Post-Classical American Literature'' (London: Kollophon) * 1988: ''The Library of Label'' (Toronto: Coach House)

Reviews

Jacket Magazine 15, December 2001. Andrea Brady reviews ''Left Under a Cloud'' by Stephen Rodefer

References

Official Stephen Rodefer website with paintings, poems, bio + news
* ttp://www.sfsu.edu/~newlit/readings/readings.htm Poetry Center Readingsbr>dealer exhibiting examples of Stephen Rodefer's language paintings

External links

- this is a link to some language paintings by Stephen Rodefer

— view facsimile or download reading copy
"NOTES » Stephen Rodefer"
- this is a link to some notes that poet Tom Raworth posted on his weblog after attending Rodefer's funeral {{DEFAULTSORT:Rodefer, Stephen 20th-century American painters 20th-century American male artists American male painters 21st-century American painters 21st-century American male artists American male poets Language poets University at Buffalo alumni Amherst College alumni San Francisco State University alumni San Francisco State University faculty 1940 births 2015 deaths