Norman Rosten

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 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. Each won the Avery Hopwood Award.

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

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.

His work appeared in The New Yorker.

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.

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

In Guernica

Plays First Stop to Heaven, 1941 Mister Johnson, an adaptation of Joyce Cary's novel of the same name (premiere 1956) Mardi Gras The Golden Door

Novels Under the Boardwalk, Prentice-Hall, 1968 Over and Out, G. Braziller, 1972

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

Anthologies