Carcanet Press - Call It Thought

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Call It Thought spans more than forty years of writing by an American poet whose career has encompassed a large portion of modern literary culture. As a student, Stephen Rodefer conversed with Robert Frost; he studied with Olson, Creeley, Ed Dorn and Basil Bunting before moving in the 1970s to San Francisco, where his work was first published and where he was an original member of the Poets Theater.

Grounded in the modernism of Stein, Pound and Williams, Rodefer is heir also to Frank O’Hara’s playful virtuosity, and associated with the experimentalism of Language poetry. Touching all these, his work is a series of provocative re-inventions, exhilarating, innovative and independent of any orthodoxy.

This volume brings together his work for the first time. New, unpublished writing is included as well as some of his acclaimed translations of Villon and part of his award-winning Four Lectures, of which Robert Creeley declared, ‘Very SOLID, GREAT and useful satiric ploy with bedrock concerns. Grab Four Lectures, it’s possibly the last real sense you’ll be offered.’

Table of Contents

Double You: The Writing of Stephen Rodefer by Rod Mengham

from Four Lectures

Preface
Pretext
Codex

from Lies of the Artists

Artist's Life
Villon
Hart Crane
Sappho
Picasso
Corazon de Melon
A Day in the Country
Hotel des Artistes
Is Taylor Mead Home?
Interview with Robert Creeley
for Shocks
Chicago
Not An Easy Appointment
I Make Out Henry Moore

from One or Two Love Poems from the White World

On the Line
Blue Angel
Let Us Now # 5
Pastorale
After Lucretius
Ode on Easter Morning Riding Westward
Asinine
New Mexico Lunch
Sweet Uses
Commotion
The Electrified World
Did Cave Women Come
In the Nursing School Auditorium
She Cine
Poem Called the Beauty of Park Benches
Old Times Now
Erosie
See the Perfect Stanza Beginning Tarzan
Your Veins Are Using Up the Redness of the World

from Villon, by Jean Calais

Le Noel, morte saison
De ce je me puis revenchier
Bien est verte
Ma nominacion de l'universite
De povrete
Ou tout vif aller es cieulx
Poem from Death Row: Freres humains qui apres nous vivez
Dictes moy: Ballad to Lost and Jaded Time
Se celle
Car elle sans moy
En ce bordeau ou tenons nostre estat
A filletes monstrans tetins
Cy gist
'J'en appelles'
Icy se clost le testament

from The Bell Clerk's Tears Keep Flowing

Serving Time
Dante in the Limpid Cloud
Romance and Desuetude
D(ear) J(esse)
Felix Navidad
Poetry and Sleep
Ode on Revolution and Fertility
Show a Little Emotion
Nosotros
Bucolic Aire
Mientras Tomo una Taza de Cafe
Ode to the End
Nerves of Dolor and Carnage
Love Thirty
Stormy Weather
Poem (Sometimes I forget you don't love me anymore)
Poem (When the dirt)
B
Friend of the Hopi

from Emergency Measures

Chaplinesque
Collateral Damage
Adamant Dote
The Heavenly Bodies That Go By
Flaky Material Like Talc
Imitation W
George Eliot in Oakland
Suicide: An Ode
Islets of Langerhans
Identified Asylum
Oppening
Dancing Bar in Baden-Baden
Slipping Glimpser
Poem Beginning with a Line by Carla
Drove of Stallions
Time Loves a Hero
The Accoucheur Comes
Numberless Shadows
Closure
Hungary
Eats Lake
Drowsy Strelitz

Oriflamme Day (with Benjamin Friedlander)

from Passing Duration

Enclosure of Elk
Inscription
Stray Wood
Hunting
Riches
Endscape

A & C: An Idyll in One Act

Daydreams of Frascati (with drawings by Chip Sullivan)

from Writing Out of Character

Another Wedding Day
Fleur du Val

from Left Under a Cloud

Beauty’s Solitary Sober
Anemic Cinema
La Nuit Fattuski
Brief to Butterick
March Ample Life
To a Reader
Child of Faust
In Memory of Ted Berrigan
Harkening Still
Spurwhang Filch
Wittgenstein’s See
And Reawakement
Titular
To the Empress
Arabesque at Bar
Who I Am
The Day Lady Died
Indent
Answer to Doctor Agathon
Stewed and Fraught with Birds

from Erasers

Beating Erasers

from Mon Canard

from Fever Flowers: Les fleurs du val

To Any Reader
Healthy Diction Being Benediction
Albatross
Elevator
Adulterers

from How to Fall Off the Pony in New York

Lang gaz verlangen
Coughing Laughter Before Yawning Death
The Law We Love Is Erotic Memory
Sylvie et Cie Sylvie
Sleeping on the Window like a Duck
Drinking Amongst the Wafering Drinkers
Looking for the Key Ajar in My Kentucky Home
Blue Loss

Index of Titles
Index of First Lines

The American writer Stephen Rodefer, who lives in Paris, is the author of many volumes of poetry, prose, plays and translation. His work extends the tradition of the Black Mountain and New York schools of American poetry. His book of long poems, Four Lectures, was a winner of the ... read more

'Stephen Rodeferâs writing is simply one of the eight wonders of the world.'
Ian Patterson 'Youthful what? Where is Rodefer, heâll know. That damn Lycidas. Whatever else England draws upon, itâs native talent will out. The damn Lycidas! Where did Rodefer go? Youthful what?'
Charles Olson 'Of all the most intensely American of poets, Stephen Rodefer is the most European. The scenes and images and vocabularies of homecoming that dominate his work are all translated from foreign tongues, making his poetry the most complete form of cultural longing, a wandering further and further off, finding new phrases to move straight out of, nostalgic for a syntax of belonging whose rules have never been known.'
Rod Mengham 'Stephen Rodefer is in my view, and in that of many others... quite simply the most important living American poet.'
Simon Jarvis 'His intellectual voracity, combined with a democratic enthusiasm for the common tongue, gives his poetry its depth and breath and brilliance. A major poet.'
Maud Ellmann

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Call It Thought Selected Poems Stephen Rodefer Series: Poetry PlÃ©iade Categories: 20th Century, 21st Century, American Imprint: Carcanet Poetry Publisher: Carcanet Press Available as: Paperback (193 pages) (Pub. Sep 2008) 9781857549492 Out of Stock Description Author Contents Reviews Call It Thought spans more than forty years of writing by an American poet whose career has encompassed a large portion of modern literary culture. As a student, Stephen Rodefer conversed with Robert Frost; he studied with Olson, Creeley, Ed Dorn and Basil Bunting before moving in the 1970s to San Francisco, where his work was first published and where he was an original member of the Poets Theater. Grounded in the modernism of Stein, Pound and Williams, Rodefer is heir also to Frank O’Hara’s playful virtuosity, and associated with the experimentalism of Language poetry. Touching all these, his work is a series of provocative re-inventions, exhilarating, innovative and independent of any orthodoxy. This volume brings together his work for the first time. New, unpublished writing is included as well as some of his acclaimed translations of Villon and part of his award-winning Four Lectures, of which Robert Creeley declared, ‘Very SOLID, GREAT and useful satiric ploy with bedrock concerns. Grab Four Lectures, it’s possibly the last real sense you’ll be offered.’ Table of Contents Double You: The Writing of Stephen Rodefer by Rod Mengham from Four Lectures Preface Pretext Codex from Lies of the Artists Artist's Life Villon Hart Crane Sappho Picasso Corazon de Melon A Day in the Country Hotel des Artistes Is Taylor Mead Home? Interview with Robert Creeley for Shocks Chicago Not An Easy Appointment I Make Out Henry Moore from One or Two Love Poems from the White World On the Line Blue Angel Let Us Now # 5 Pastorale After Lucretius Ode on Easter Morning Riding Westward Asinine New Mexico Lunch Sweet Uses Commotion The Electrified World Did Cave Women Come In the Nursing School Auditorium She Cine Poem Called the Beauty of Park Benches Old Times Now Erosie See the Perfect Stanza Beginning Tarzan Your Veins Are Using Up the Redness of the World from Villon, by Jean Calais Le Noel, morte saison De ce je me puis revenchier Bien est verte Ma nominacion de l'universite De povrete Ou tout vif aller es cieulx Poem from Death Row: Freres humains qui apres nous vivez Dictes moy: Ballad to Lost and Jaded Time Se celle Car elle sans moy En ce bordeau ou tenons nostre estat A filletes monstrans tetins Cy gist 'J'en appelles' Icy se clost le testament from The Bell Clerk's Tears Keep Flowing Serving Time Dante in the Limpid Cloud Romance and Desuetude D(ear) J(esse) Felix Navidad Poetry and Sleep Ode on Revolution and Fertility Show a Little Emotion Nosotros Bucolic Aire Mientras Tomo una Taza de Cafe Ode to the End Nerves of Dolor and Carnage Love Thirty Stormy Weather Poem (Sometimes I forget you don't love me anymore) Poem (When the dirt) B Friend of the Hopi from Emergency Measures Chaplinesque Collateral Damage Adamant Dote The Heavenly Bodies That Go By Flaky Material Like Talc Imitation W George Eliot in Oakland Suicide: An Ode Islets of Langerhans Identified Asylum Oppening Dancing Bar in Baden-Baden Slipping Glimpser Poem Beginning with a Line by Carla Drove of Stallions Time Loves a Hero The Accoucheur Comes Numberless Shadows Closure Hungary Eats Lake Drowsy Strelitz Oriflamme Day (with Benjamin Friedlander) from Passing Duration Enclosure of Elk Inscription Stray Wood Hunting Riches Endscape A & C: An Idyll in One Act Daydreams of Frascati (with drawings by Chip Sullivan) from Writing Out of Character Another Wedding Day Fleur du Val from Left Under a Cloud Beauty’s Solitary Sober Anemic Cinema La Nuit Fattuski Brief to Butterick March Ample Life To a Reader Child of Faust In Memory of Ted Berrigan Harkening Still Spurwhang Filch Wittgenstein’s See And Reawakement Titular To the Empress Arabesque at Bar Who I Am The Day Lady Died Indent Answer to Doctor Agathon Stewed and Fraught with Birds from Erasers Beating Erasers from Mon Canard from Fever Flowers: Les fleurs du val To Any Reader Healthy Diction Being Benediction Albatross Elevator Adulterers from How to Fall Off the Pony in New York Lang gaz verlangen Coughing Laughter Before Yawning Death The Law We Love Is Erotic Memory Sylvie et Cie Sylvie Sleeping on the Window like a Duck Drinking Amongst the Wafering Drinkers Looking for the Key Ajar in My Kentucky Home Blue Loss Index of Titles Index of First Lines The American writer Stephen Rodefer, who lives in Paris, is the author of many volumes of poetry, prose, plays and translation. His work extends the tradition of the Black Mountain and New York schools of American poetry. His book of long poems, Four Lectures, was a winner of the ... read more 'Stephen Rodeferâs writing is simply one of the eight wonders of the world.' Ian Patterson 'Youthful what? Where is Rodefer, heâll know. That damn Lycidas. Whatever else England draws upon, itâs native talent will out. The damn Lycidas! Where did Rodefer go? Youthful what?' Charles Olson 'Of all the most intensely American of poets, Stephen Rodefer is the most European. The scenes and images and vocabularies of homecoming that dominate his work are all translated from foreign tongues, making his poetry the most complete form of cultural longing, a wandering further and further off, finding new phrases to move straight out of, nostalgic for a syntax of belonging whose rules have never been known.' Rod Mengham 'Stephen Rodefer is in my view, and in that of many others... quite simply the most important living American poet.' Simon Jarvis 'His intellectual voracity, combined with a democratic enthusiasm for the common tongue, gives his poetry its depth and breath and brilliance. A major poet.' Maud Ellmann	Share this... Quick Links Carcanet Poetry Carcanet Classics Carcanet Fiction Carcanet Film Lives and Letters PN Review Video Carcanet Celebrates 50 Years! The Carcanet Blog Coco Island: Christine Roseeta Walker read more that which appears: Thomas A Clark read more Come Here to This Gate: Rory Waterman read more Near-Life Experience: Rowland Bagnall read more The Silence: Gillian Clarke read more Baby Schema: Isabel Galleymore read more
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Call It Thought

Selected Poems

Stephen Rodefer