Four Lectures

Originally published in the 1980s, Rodefer's four long poems are milestones in American avant garde poetry. After over fifty years out of print, the master's poetic magnum opus is available again.

Stephen Rodefer was one of the most innovative and singular of American poets, a student of Charles Olson’s often associated with the Language poets but whose eclectic, energetic verse defies categorization and embraces a worldly lyricism uniquely his own. Four Lectures is widely considered to be his masterpiece, a book of four long poems that explore the radical possibilities of language through a generous, intimate collage of the sights and sounds, the words and images that form the poet’s world. Making freewheeling reference to Shakespeare and Sappho, Looney Tunes and Ethel Waters, among others, Rodefer boldly reimagines the modern philosophical poem, exemplified by Four Quartets and Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror, for a new and fragmentary age. First published in 1982 by Geoffrey Young’s legendary press The Figures and long beloved by readers, these witty, playful poems have been unavailable in a single volume for nearly half a century. This new edition will reproduce the layout of the original, in which the material presentation of words on the page is integral to the meaning of the poem. Of Four Lectures, Ron Silliman writes: “Philosopher-harlequin, the poet speaks plainly, having just now invented the line. What other writer can give us this much of the real.”

Stephen Rodefer (1940–2015) was an American poet and painter who lived in Paris and London. Born in Bellaire, Ohio, he knew many of the early Beat and Black Mountain poets, including Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Charles Olson, and Robert Creeley. Rodefer, one of the original Language poets, taught at many universities, including Cambridge University, 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. He was the author of One or Two Love Poems from the White World, The Bell Clerk's Tears Keep Flowing, Four Lectures, 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 graphic work, Language Pictures, has been exhibited in recent years in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, Paris, and Prague. He died in Paris.

Geoffrey Young is a poet and publisher. His press, The Figures, was the original publisher of Four Lectures.