Stuart Friebert

Stuart Friebert (12 July 1931 -- 30 June 2020) was an American poet and translator who co-founded FIELD: Contemporary Poetry and Poetics in 1969 with David Young at Oberlin College. 
== Life & Career ==
Friebert was a prolific author and translator publishing 15 volumes of poetry, 4 prose works, and 16 books in translation by poets including Karl Krolow, Günter Eich, Sylva Fischerová, Ute von Funcke, Miroslav Holub, Giovanni Raboni, Kuno Raeber, Elisabeth Smeidel, Marin Sorescu, and Judita Vaičiūnaitė. Friebert won the Four Way Books Award for Funeral Pie in 1997, the Ohioana Book Award for Floating Heart in 2015, and an NEA Fellowship in Poetry.
Marianne Boruch characterized Friebert's poetry as, "Part fable, more than a dash of grit, always sane and wryly out there." Lee Upton found the poems to be "unsparing and searching, shining with lucidity, attentive to both the anguish of history and the intimacies of singular lives." Friebert's earliest poems were short and characterized by surrealistic imagery. Comparing his later work to Richard Hugo, the critic Kali Lightfoot noted, "The same straightforward imagery and wry humor can be found." 
In FIELD's fifty years of publication it was "one of the country’s most prestigious contemporary poetry reviews." The poet Martha Collins who later helped Friebert and others edit the journal wrote, "From the beginning, FIELD published nationally-known poets alongside people no one had ever heard of." 
After initially teaching German at Oberlin, Friebert founded the creative writing program there. He also co-founded the FIELD Translation Series and the Oberlin College Press. He was married to the fiction writer Diane Vreuls.
=== Works of Poetry ===
* Stories My Father Can Tell, Pocket Pal Press (Oberlin, OH), 1975.
* Uncertain Health, Woolmer/Brotherson (Revere, PA), 1979.
* Near Occasions of Sin, Doom-AH Books (Long Beach, CA), 2004.
* Speak Mouth to Mouth, WordTech Communications, (Cincinnati, OH), 2009.
* Floating Heart, Pinyon Publishing (Montrose, CO), 2014. AWARD: Ohio Book Award 2015.
* On the Bottom, Iris Press (Oakridge, TN), 2015
* Decanting: Selected & New Poems, Lost Horse Press (Sandpoint, ID), 2017.
=== Poetry in Translation ===
* Sylva Fischerová: The Swing in the Middle of Chaos: Selected Poems, Bloodaxe Books, (Hexham), 2009.
* Karl Krolow: Puppets in the Wind: Selected Poems, The Bitter Oleander Press (Fayetteville, NY) 2014.
* Sylva Fischerová: Stomach of the Soul, Calypso Editions (Houston, TX), 2014.
* Kuno Raeber: Be Quiet: Selected Poems,Tiger Bark Press (Rochester, NY), 2015.
* Kuno Raeber: Watch Out: Selected Poems, Lost Horse Press (Sandpoint, ID), 2016.
* Kuno Raeber: Votives: Selected Poems, Lost Horse Press (Sandpoint, ID), 2017.
* Elisabeth Schmeidel: Scant Hours, Pinyon Publishing (Montrose, CO), 2018.
* Ute Von Funcke: Between Question and Answer, Pinyon Publishing (Montrose, CO), 2018.
* Ute Von Funcke: Shadow of Shadows: Selected Poems, Black Mountain Press (Swannanoa, NC), 2020.
=== Prose ===
* The Language of the Enemy, Black Mountain Press (Asheville, North Carolina), 2015.
* First and Last Words: Memoir & Stories, Pinyon Publishing (Montrose, CO), 2017.
=== Prose and Poetry ===
* A Double Life: In Poetry and Translation, Pinyon Press (Montrose, CO), 2019.
== References ==
== External Links ==
*Stuart Friebert on Amazon
Category:1931 births
Category:2020 deaths
Category:American poets
Category:Translators
Category:American translator
Category:Poets