Norman Rosten

Norman Rosten
Born(1913-01-01)January 1, 1913
New York City, US
DiedMarch 7, 1995(1995-03-07) (aged 82)
New York City, US
Alma mater
Spouse
Hedda Rowinski
​
(m. 1940⁠–⁠1984)​
Children1
Writing career
Notable workScreenplay for Vu du Pont
Notable awards

Norman Rosten (January 1, 1913 – March 7, 1995) was an American poet, playwright, and novelist.

Early life

Rosten was born to a Polish Jewish family[1][2] in New York City and grew up in Hurleyville, New York. He graduated from Brooklyn College and New York University, and the University of Michigan, where he met Arthur Miller.[3] Each won the Avery Hopwood Award.

Career

In 1979, Brooklyn's borough president Howard Golden named Rosten as the poet laureate of Brooklyn.[3]

Among Rosten's work outside the field of poetry, he wrote the libretto for Ezra Laderman's opera Marilyn. He also wrote the screenplay for Sidney Lumet's film Vu du Pont, adapting Miller's A View from the Bridge.[3] He visited Mickey Knox in Rome.[4]

Rosten was a poetry consultant for Simon and Schuster Publishers. It was through that role that he came to know fellow poet Andrew Glaze. The two became friends and Glaze later dedicated his book I am the Jefferson County Courthouse to Rosten.[5]

His work appeared in The New Yorker.[6]

Death

Rosten married his wife, Hedda Rowinski, in 1938. Together they had one child, daughter Patricia, in 1946. He resided in Brooklyn after college. The Rostens knew Marilyn Monroe for the last seven years of her life.[3]

Rosten died in New York City from congestive heart failure on March 7, 1995, at the age of 81.[3]

Awards

Works

Poetry

  • Return Again, Traveler, Yale University Press, 1940
  • The big road: a narrative poem, Rinehart & Company, Inc., 1946
  • Imagine Seeing You Here: a world of poetry, lively and lyrical
  • Thrive Upon the Rock, Trident Press, 1965
  • Selected Poems. G. Braziller. 1979. ISBN 978-0-8076-0938-5.
  • Patricia Rosten Filan, ed. (2004). A City Is. Illustrator Melanie Hope Greenberg. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-8050-6793-4.
  • In Guernica

Plays

Novels

  • Under the Boardwalk, Prentice-Hall, 1968
  • Over and Out, G. Braziller, 1972
  • Love in All Its Disguises. Arbor House. 1981. ISBN 978-0-87795-324-1.
  • Neighborhood Tales. G. Braziller. 1986. ISBN 978-0-8076-1152-4.

Non-fiction

  • Marilyn: An Untold Story, New American Library, 1973
  • Marilyn among Friends, with photographer Sam Shaw. UK: Bloomsbury (1987)

Anthologies

  • Cary Nelson, ed. (2002). "The March". The wound and the dream: sixty years of American poems about the Spanish Civil War. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-07070-9.

References

  1. ↑ Meyers, Jeffrey (January 19, 2012). The Genius and the Goddess: Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe. University of Illinois Press; 1st edition. p. 155. ISBN 9780252078545.
  2. ↑ Migrants, Immigrants, and Slaves: Racial and Ethnic Groups in America By Thompson Dele Olasiji. p.118.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Gussow, Mel (March 9, 1995). "Norman Rosten, 81, Playwright And Brooklyn's Poet Laureate". The New York Times. The New York Times Company. ISSN 0362-4331. OCLC 1645522. Retrieved October 10, 2025.
  4. ↑ Mickey Knox (2004). The good, the bad, and the dolce vita: the adventures of an actor in Hollywood, Paris, and Rome. Nation Books. ISBN 978-1-56025-575-8.
  5. ↑ Doreski, William, ed. (1985). Earth That Sings: on the poetry of Andrew Glaze. Houston, Texas: Ford-Brown & Co. ISBN 0-918644-16-X.
  6. ↑ "Search : The New Yorker". www.newyorker.com. Archived from the original on October 16, 2012.
  7. ↑ "Norman Rosten - John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation". www.gf.org. Archived from the original on June 4, 2011.
  8. ↑ Mister Johnson. New York City: Harper Perennial. 1969 [1939]. ISBN 978-0-8222-0764-1. Archived from the original on December 10, 2019.
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