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Originally published in the 1980s and out of print until now, Rodefer's four long poems are milestones in American avant-garde poetry. Stephen Rodefer was an innovative, singular American writera student of Charles Olsons often associated with the Language poets but whose eclectic, energetic verse defies categorization and embraces a worldly lyricism all Rodefers own. Four Lecturesfirst published in 1982 by Geoffrey Youngs legendary press The Figures and long out of printis widely considered to be his masterpiece. It is a book of four long poems that explore the radical possibilities of language through a generous, intimate collage of sights and sounds, voices and images, drawn from the poets world. In city-block-like stanzas by turns philosophical and political, playful and playing for keeps, with freewheeling reference to everything from Shakespeare to Looney Tunes to Iceberg Slim and much else besides, Rodefer boldly reimagines the modern philosophical poem exemplified by T. S. Eliots Four Quartets and John Ashberys Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror for an inundating, fragmentary age in which there are more photographs in the world than there are bricks.
Originally published in the 1980s and out of print until now, Rodefer's four long poems are milestones in American avant-garde poetry.
Stephen Rodefer was an innovative, singular American writera student of Charles Olsons often associated with the Language poets but whose eclectic, energetic verse defies categorization and embraces a worldly lyricism all Rodefers own. Four Lecturesfirst published in 1982 by Geoffrey Youngs legendary press The Figures and long out of printis widely considered to be his masterpiece. It is a book of four long poems that explore the radical possibilities of language through a generous, intimate collage of sights and sounds, voices and images, drawn from the poets world. In city-block-like stanzas by turns philosophical and political, playful and playing for keeps, with freewheeling reference to everything from Shakespeare to Looney Tunes to Iceberg Slim and much else besides, Rodefer boldly reimagines the modern philosophical poem exemplified by T. S. Eliots Four Quartets and John Ashberys Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror for an inundating, fragmentary age in which there are more photographs in the world than there are bricks.