Four Lectures

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.”