Stephen Rodefer, a Memorial Tribute at Berkeley Arts Festival

Saturday, November 21, 2015, 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Photo of Stephen Rodefer
Poets read in tribute to the late poet and painter Stephen Rodefer, who died in August at age 64. Free.
Location: 
Berkeley Arts Festival, 2133 University Avenue, Berkeley
Directions: 
Sponsor: 
The Poetry Center
Contact: 
The Poetry Center
Phone: 
415-338-2227
Event extras: 
from Felix Brenner:
 
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a son's obituary
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Stephen Rodefer

1940 - 2015
 
A man of words, of excesses, lover of clothes, lover of love, Stephen Rodefer was born November 20, 1940, in Bellaire, Ohio, to Dorothy and Howard Rodefer. The youngest of three, brother to Rick and Judy, Stephen was raised on the hill-top, athletic with a racquet, and prone to blow glass. He died in Paris, at home amongst the trappings of his genius, exhausted books and wild paintings.
 
He was educated at Amherst College (BA), SUNY Buffalo (MA, ABT), and SFSU(MFA), going on to foster the pen of so many others, teaching around the world at the likes of UC Berkeley and San Diego, Cambridge University, the Pratt Institute of Art, and San Francisco State.
 
Stephen was devoted to his writing above all else. He was a brilliant passeur of thought and beauty, taking on L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E, reinventing Villon, working on traditional themes and form while always pushing well beyond.
 
Stephen leaves behind many clusters of friends made around the globe, interspersed networks coupled by his life, his narrative. He is survived by three sons, Benjamin, Felix, and Dewey, and now beats his drum beside his fourth, D(ear) J(esse), so missed during his final stanza. Our father's sons, progeny of verse.
 
To articulate in such failing words, albeit words of love, the life of a master of phrase would bring him a sly smile and some editorial joy. But go read for yourself, from VILLON to Four Lectures, from The Bell Clerk's Tears Keep Flowing to Left Under A Cloud, go read his everlasting word, his imprint on us, his mark on the world.
 
"Underneath you wear a flowing red robe, and I am an adoring suitor. My name is love, my dead body will be the rising sun, the day will last forever. I have always carried with me an urge of great melancholy, like a black cloth gardenia. It is an inheritance of heart and nerves. Here the maestro himself puts down his pen."*
 
*Show a Little Emotion, for the granite
from The Bell Clerk’s Tears Keep Flowing (1978) by Stephen Rodefer
 

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