Discipline: Literature – poetry

Byron Vazakas

Discipline: Literature – poetry
Region: Reading, PA
MacDowell Fellowships: 1965
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Byron Vazakas (1905-1987) was an American poet, whose career extended from the modernist era well into the postmodernist period. He was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1947. From 1936 to 1942, Vazakas’ prose writing appeared in the Reading Times and the Historical Review of Berks County. Although he never publicly claimed authorship, evidence is clear from a newspaper report that Vazakas wrote a 16-page pamphlet, "The Reading Public Museum and Art Gallery, Reading, Pennsylvania: Its History and Purpose," ca. 1941. Statements in its text also establish Vazakas as the author of a more ambitious work, The History of Reading Hospital, published in 1942. As with his early poetry, Vazakas later omitted any reference to these extensively researched pieces of writing. More satisfying, apparently, was the acceptance of individual poems he submitted to periodicals such as American Poetry Journal.

Studios

Phi Beta

Byron Vazakas worked in the Phi Beta studio.

Funded by the Phi Beta Fraternity, a national professional fraternity of music and speech founded in 1912, Phi Beta Studio was built between 1929–1931 of granite quarried on the MacDowell grounds. The small studio is a simple in design, but displays a pleasing combination of materials with its granite walls and colorful slate roofing. Inside is…

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