Benjamin Saltman
Benjamin Saltman was an American poet and Professor of verse writing and contemporary American literature at California State University, Northridge.
The Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award is given annually by Red Hen Press in his honor.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 are Noa and Oren Figenblat, Lia and Sivan Gabai, and Ben and Remy.Career
Saltman was the recipient of two literature fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts in 1969 and 1987. He provided editorial assistance for the Swami Prabhavananda in "The Sermon on the Mount according to Vedanta". 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.
