Bill Zavatsky

Bill Zavatsky (born 1943 Bridgeport, Connecticut) is an American poetryAmerican poet]], journalist, jazz pianist, and translator.

Life and career
Zavatsky could be described as a second-generation New York School poet, influenced by such writers as Frank O'Hara and Kenneth Koch. Koch was his professor at Columbia University. In addition to the wry humor typical of the New York School, Zavatsky adds to his poetry an emotional poignancy that gives it additional depth. Like some of his predecessors in the New York School, Zavatsky also excels as a translator of poetry. His work in this area has included English versions of the writers André Breton, Valery Larbaud, Robert Desnos, and Ramón Gómez de la Serna.

Zavatsky has worked as a journalist; his articles have appeared in The New York Times Book Review and Rolling Stone. He was editor-in-chief of SUN press and SUN magazine. He has taught workshops for Teachers & Writers Collaborative, Long Island University, and University of Texas-Austin. For many years he taught English at Trinity School in New York City, where his students frequently won creative writing awards. His cotranslation of André Breton's Earthlight received the International PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize.

His artistic influences include the jazz pianist Bill Evans, whom Zavatsky got to know late in the musician's career. Zavatsky has eloquently eulogized Evans, both in the liner notes to his albums, and in his poem "Live at the Village Vanguard."

Zavatsky grew up in a working-class family in Bridgeport, Connecticut. His father was a mechanic who owned a garage. Zavatsky was the first member of his family to graduate from a four-year college. He attended Columbia University, where his fellow students included a dynamic cohort of budding writers, such as Phillip Lopate, Ron Padgett, and David Shapiro.

Zavatsky lives in New York City.

Recognition
2004 PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Award
 * 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship

Poetry

 * Theories of Rain and Other Poems, Sun, 1975, ISBN 9780915342037
 * For Steve Royal and Other Poems, Coalition of Publishers for Employment, 1985
 * Where X Marks the Spot Hanging Loose Press, 2006, ISBN 9781931236683

Translated

 * The Poems of A.O. Barnabooth Valéry Larbaud, Translators Ron Padgett, Bill Zavatsky, Mushinsha, 1977
 * Earthlight: Poems of André Breton Translator Bill Zavatsky, Zack Rogow, Sun & Moon Press, 1993, ISBN 9781557130952