​George Economou

George Economou is the author of 14 books of poetry and translations, the latest of which are Complete Plus, The Poems of C. P. Cavafy in English, Ananios of Kleitor, and Acts of Love: Ancient Greek Poetry from Aphrodite’s Garden. His new book of poems, Finishing Cavafy’s Unfinished & Selected Poems and Translations is scheduled for publication in the fall of 2015. His work has appeared regularly in Jerome Rothenberg’s Technicians of the Sacred, the Poems from the Millennium series, and other anthologies. In the late 1950s he was one of five founding editors, with Robert and Joan Kelly, of The Chelsea Review, from which the three resigned in 1960 and subsequently founded the journal Trobar and Trobar Books.

Economou earned a BA from Colgate in 1956 and a PhD in medieval English and comparative literature at Columbia in 1967. He retired in 2000 after 41 years of teaching at several universities, including the University of Oklahoma, where he served as department chair of English (1983-90) and director of Creative Writing (1990-2000), the Brooklyn Center of Long Island University, Hunter College, and Columbia. A Rockefeller Fellow at Bellagio and named twice as an NEA Fellow in Poetry, Economou has given readings and lectures throughout the United States and in numerous countries. He lives with his wife, poet and playwright Rochelle Owens in Philadelphia and Wellfleet, Massachusetts.