McGill Library
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Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Rodefer, Stephen, 1940-2015
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Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
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Description area
Dates of existence
1940-2015
History
Stephen Wayne Rodefer was born on November 20, 1940, in Bellaire, Ohio.
He was an American poet, writer, translator, painter, and educator. He graduated from Amherst College (B.A., 1963), SUNY Buffalo (M.A.) and San Francisco State University (M.F.A.). He taught English and creative writing at the University of New Mexico and lectured at various colleges, including San Francisco State University and the University of California at San Diego, where he served as curator of the Archive for New Poetry. Rodefer has published translations of Sappho, Catullus, Lucretius, Dante, Baudelaire, Rilke, Villon, O’Hara, and the Cuban poet Noel Nicola. His graphic work, Language Pictures, has been exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, Paris, and Prague. He is the author of many books of poetry, prose, plays, and translations, including “Call it Thought: Selected Poems” (2008), “Left Under A Cloud” (2000), “Mon Canard” (2000), “Erasures” (1994), “Leaving” (1992), “Passing Duration” (1991), “Emergency Measures” (1987), and “Four Lectures” (1982). He was one of the original Language poets. Rodefer's papers were purchased by Stanford University and are on permanent view there.
He lived in Paris, France, where he died on August 22, 2015.