Edwin Rolfe — Brickyards at Beacon and Other Poems

Edwin Rolfe’s life passed through the defining conflicts of his century: immigrant labor politics, the Depression, the Spanish Civil War, World War II, Hollywood, and the blacklist. Born Solomon Fishman, he became a poet and journalist on the American left, edited Volunteer for Liberty in Madrid, served with the Lincoln Battalion, and later wrote from Los Angeles as political repression narrowed his means of livelihood. His best poems turn public history into intimate tests of courage, loyalty, anger, and betrayal. This edition presents every Rolfe poem recoverable from the project’s current local sources and documents the larger book record that remains to be collated.