Four Lectures

by Stephen Rodefer

FROM THE BACK COVER: Part carnival, part war, the clamor of the world is loud in these works, submitted by a rigorous and passionate intellect to the clarities which only language can yield from details this fast and dense. Philosopher-harlequin, the poet speaks plainly, having just now invented the line. What other writer can give us this much of the real? by Ron Silliman

Genres: Poetry

74 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

Reviews

[michal k-c · Rating 3 out of 5]

it is a work perhaps a little too historically situated for me, given the velocity of the prose-ish poetry (and velocity has a trajectory of course, so where is the work going? simply onto the next thing). There is a bit of tension in the anti-zeitgeist new-sentence lyric and the future-facing experimentation in form and syntax (some great polysemantic play here). That all being said it is a lovely reading experience, and some lines are sure to stick in the mind for years to come ("Life is a waste of money")

[Rodney · Rating 5 out of 5]

LONG FORM: I admire Rodefer’s writing as much as the next poet of my age, place, and proximity to Language, plus I knew him a little at Cambridge the year he arrived. Some of Rodefer’s earlier work in One or Two Poems from the White World and his extraordinary VILLON (which is later I think than Four Lectures) send the ball further for me though than these do. The insistent pacing, Borscht Belty antic tone, and unremittingly block-like textual units exhaust me pretty quickly, even where they show glints of the waspish aesthete through the sober Langpo threads, which never seemed to fit Rodefer as naturally as they do some others. I have friends who swear by this book, so I’ve tried and tried, but the prodigious intelligence, wit, and charisma I see here I find in greater concentration in some of his other collections. Has anyone seen his Baudelaire yet?

SHORT FORM: “Just the right hint of everything,
pushed through a sieve.”

[Robert Reinhard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagination, association and language - what's the opposite of an utter and complete boggling catastrophe? that's sort of how these 4 long irreducible poems come off. And for all of their wild, earnest thought, assembled in block like marching 15 line stanzas in contrast. Preceded by the poet's manifesto for poetry, brilliance.

[Nothing · Rating 5 out of 5]

epic, eminent, vertiginous lexic falls and flourish, finished with gymnastic upward-thrown hand celebrants. culture and its wide-thrown discursive markers. the man himself. in words.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published in 1982:

"Marble is no longer the style of course. Our era promises to make the late Roman look small time, if not benign. In a world in which there are more photographs than there are bricks, can there be more pictures than there are places? I'm told that soon there will be more people living than have ever died. In innumerable ways we exist in an incomprehensible age. It is entirely unnecessary for this argument (though ultimate) to mention nuclear weapons. The signs are otherwise quite enough" (2).

"Most of the fish I have known if they *had* had bicycles wouldn't have been eaten" (12).

"The opportunities of this world have become so scarce
that people have stopped applying for them.
The result is that periods of deprivation
have become much longer. People who used to spend
a few weeks or a month seeking a job or a place
to live, or a lover, now are looking for years,
or not bothering to look at all because they know
it's not there, or it's too expensive, or they can't
have it because they haven't already got it.
When breakdowns occur under this kind of UPPED ANTE
(or you could say people are sitting at a table where
there are no longer any cards being dealt),
they are likely to be much more severe —
it is altogether a cruel and unusual turn of events,
but out of it we should not expect a new Constitution" (14).

"Let's go AER LINGUS. Let's get sleepy and fuck. People want you to run into them.
When you can't tell whether someone is gay or just well dressed, you know you're in
a fancy part of town" (50).

"The only good poem is the one that's read" (52).

""Do birds have art? or do they just sing what comes
to mind?" (55).

[H]

“He has a resemblance in the upper face to the man who robbed you./ I am pleased to be here. To my left is Philipa, who will be signing for me” (5) ; “Apply nivea cream and be dumb./ In regards death everybody is a mystic./ Cheeseburgers may be required in paradise” (11); “But a California girl is a potential song” (12); “Boyfriends were dispensable in the weather in which every other day was capital” (16); “Nothing is true, but everything is real” (17) ; “If poems could kill, a lot of people would die” (22); “You speak to me in SIGN language and I’m buying it./ I have cultivated this mild hysteria for fear of ecstasy./I came by to kill you but you weren’t home” (23); “Men don’t love women, though they try” (25); “I wear cufflinks because I am an ecology freak” (26); “so an inexplicable feeling of sadness overcame me at the xerox machine today” (29); “The past is made of brain cells” (33); “Jealousy is not the fear of losing, but of dividing” (37); “I see the ocean. It’s waving. This is our train” (38); “Long before the poem, I knew I was a poet” (42); “We are all equally alive, therefore wrong” (47); “No one can ever be more than just another supreme idiot in the river” (51); “I love the way people I love devise to keep going” (54); “Make yourself a baby and hold it, for you don’t stand a chance with a ghost like your self” (55); “If you listen, you will hear the modern genius everywhere” (57).

[Wesley Harden · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exegesis of the swelteringly omnipresent urtext the American city has inflicted upon its occupants. Keystone poetic macrocephalic expulsion.

[Dan Cassino · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t know what that was, but it was hypnotic, funny, and hinted at depth. Strange and fantastic.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

found thanks to Michael Robbins recent review of the new NYRB edition. feels fresh 40 years later.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

His best book, and one of the best books of poetry published in the last thirty years by an American. Hilariously, savagely thoughtful. Thanks, Rodefer.