Benjamin Saltman

Benjamin Saltman (September 7, 1927 – January 9, 1999) was an American poet and Professor of verse writing and contemporary American literature at California State University, Northridge.[1][2] The Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award is given annually by Red Hen Press in his honor.[3]

Benjamin Saltman
Benjamin Saltman
Born7 September 1927
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Died9 January 1999
Kensington, California
OccupationPoet, professor

Biography

Saltman was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the youngest son of Russian-Jewish immigrants. He earned a B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh in 1952 and an M.A. in creative writing from San Francisco State University in 1959. In 1967 he received a Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate School where he wrote his doctoral thesis "The Descent to God: Religious Language in Several Contemporary American Poets". He was married to Helen Saltman, and had three children. Miriam, Lara, and Marjorie Saltman. His grandchildren were Noa and Oren Figenblat, Lia and Sivan Gabai, and Ben and Remy Kfir.[4]

Career

Saltman was the recipient of two literature fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts in 1969 and 1987.[5] He provided editorial assistance for the Swami Prabhavananda in "The Sermon on the Mount according to Vedanta".[6] In 1992, after retiring, he volunteered to teach at California State University Northridge for free after state budget cuts caused the school to cancel 1,000 courses previously scheduled for the fall semester.[7][8][9]

Bibliography
  • Blue with Blue (1968)
  • The Leaves, The People (1974)
  • Elegies of Place (1976)
  • Deck (1979)
  • Five Poems (1989)
  • The Book of Moss (1992)
  • The Sun Takes Us Away (1996)
  • Sleep and Death, the Dream (1999)

The Book of Moss (extended edition - 2016) Alone With Everyone: the Uncollected Poems of Benjamin Saltman (2017) California Beige and Other Writings (2018) A Termite Memoir (2018)

References and notes
  1. Red Hen Press Author Bio Archived 2011-02-02 at the Wayback Machine redhen.org. Retrieved on 2009-07-13
  2. CSUN List of Deceased Faculty csun.edu. Retrieved on 2010-07-15
  3. Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award Archived August 30, 2009, at the Wayback Machine pw.org. Retrieved on 2009-07-13
  4. The Libraries of The Claremont Colleges, 2005 Claremont University Consortium
  5. NEA Literature Fellowships Archived 2009-11-19 at WebCite, Page 43. Retrieved on 2009-07-13.
  6. Swami Prabhavananda, The Sermon on the Mount According to Vedanta (Allen & Unwin, 1964), Page 6.
  7. "Sorry, You Can't Teach for Free", Los Angeles Times, 21 Aug 1992.
  8. "Professors' Volunteer Offer Rejected", Los Angeles Times, 22 Aug 1992.
  9. "New Law Allows Retiring CSUN Professors to Teach for Free", Los Angeles Times, 10 September 1992.
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