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 ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wr ...

and

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...

who lived in Paris and London. Born in Bellaire, Ohio, he knew many of the early beat and

Black Mountain Black Mountain may refer to: Places Australia * Black Mountain (Australian Capital Territory), a mountain in Canberra * Black Mountain, New South Wales, a village in Armidale Regional Council, New South Wales * Black Mountain, Queensland, a loca ...

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 William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Genera ...

, Gregory Corso, Charles Olson, and

Robert Creeley Robert White Creeley (May 21, 1926 – March 30, 2005) was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school. He was close with Ch ...

. Rodefer was one of the original

Language poets The Language poets (or ''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: Bernadette Mayer, Leslie Scal ...

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 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 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 translation and ...

, and that literary journal published a special issue devoted to his work in 2008. In addition to Villon, Rodefer has published translations of Sappho, selections from the Greek Anthology,

Catullus Gaius Valerius Catullus (; 84 - 54 BCE), often referred to simply as Catullus (, ), was a Latin poetry, Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote chiefly in the neoteric style of poetry, focusing on personal life rather than classical h ...

Lucretius Titus Lucretius Carus ( , ; – ) 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, and which usually is translated in ...

Dante Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His '' Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: ...

, Baudelaire, Rilke,

Frank O’Hara Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara (March 27, 1926 – July 25, 1966) was an American writer, poet, and art critic. A curator at the Museum of Modern Art, O'Hara became prominent in New York City's art world. O'Hara is regarded as a leading figure i ...

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

Education

1959-63 Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts, 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