Stephen Rodefer

{{short description|American poet and painter}}

{{Infobox writer

| name = Stephen Rodefer

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| image = Stephen Rodefer - poet painter writer teacher.jpg

| image_size = 200

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| caption = Stephen Rodefer August 2013 San Francisco, CA (©Katrine Le Gallou)

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| birth_date = {{birth date|1940|11|20}}

| birth_place = Bellaire, Ohio, U.S.

| death_date = {{death date and age|2015|08|22|1940|11|20}}

| death_place = Paris, France

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| occupation = Poet, Painter

| language = English, French

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| movement = Language poetry

| notablework = Four Lectures{{cite web|url=http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2014/09/stephen-rodefers-four-lectures-annotated-ongoing/|title=Stephen Rodefer's Four Lectures, Annotated & Ongoing|author=Poetry Foundation|work=Harriet: The Blog|date=7 October 2022 }}

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Stephen Rodefer (November 20, 1940 – August 22, 2015) was an American poet and painter who lived in Paris and London.{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0iI4AAAAIAAJ&q=stephen+rodefer+november+1940|title=Two-in-one Special Edition of the International Authors and Writers Who's ... - International Biographical Centre - Google Books|work=google.ca|year=1982}} Born in Bellaire, Ohio,{{cite web|url=http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf80000650/entire_text/|title=Guide to the Stephen Rodefer Papers, 1955-1994|work=cdlib.org}} he knew many of the early beat and Black Mountain poets, including Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Charles Olson, and Robert Creeley. Rodefer was one of the original Language poets 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.{{cite web|url=http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/hasrg/ablit/amerlit/rodefer.html|title=Stanford University Libraries|work=stanford.edu}} Rodefer died at the age of 74 in Paris in August, 2015.{{cite web|url=http://duende.bandcamp.com/track/return-in-memory-of-poet-stephen-rodefer|title=Return - In Memory of Poet Stephen Rodefer - Larry Goodell|date=23 August 2015|work=Larry Goodell}}

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