Byron Vazakas

Byron's two brothers, Alex and Donald passed away in 1996 and 2000. Donald's son, Tom currently resides in San Diego with his two children Ben and Saul Vazakas.

Vazakas died in Reading Hospital on September 30, 1987, after a brief illness, a few days after his 82nd birthday. He is buried in Gethsemane Cemetery, Laureldale, PA. The tombstone, placed by Byron’s devoted brother Alex, reads “Night Transfigured.”

Vazakas returned to spend the rest of his life quietly in Reading, PA. He lived frugally in the house provided by his brother Alex. His days were spent roaming the derelict parts of Reading and writing poetry at a table in the Reading Public Library. He saw the publication of two more volumes, The Marble Manifesto ( 1966) and Nostalgias For A House Of Cards (1970). Five additional typescript volumes, each containing 50 poems, as did his four published books, remained ready for a publisher that Vazakas never succeeded in finding. For many years he tried unsuccessfully to earn grants and fellowships and suffered frustration at the lack of recognition. He was, however, honored in Reading as its unofficial poet laureate. He gave numerous well-received readings, some as part of the Poetry in the Schools program given in high schools in Berks and surrounding counties. He was the subject of a number of local newspaper features. In May 1981 Albright College awarded him an honorary degree as Doctor of Humanities.

During these years Vazakas also reached out to seek the acquaintance of poets he admired. He wrote to, and received replies from, fellow Reading native Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, and William Carlos Williams. Williams became enthusiastic about a stanzaic technique in Vazakas’ poetry that he considered innovative. He helped Vazakas find a publisher for his first book, and wrote the introduction for the volume, which appeared in 1946. All 50 of the pieces had previously been published in 15 periodicals, including "New Mexico Quarterly Review" and "Poetry." In 1947 Vazakas was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for the book. When the award went to Robert Lowell, Vazakas said, “He deserved it. But I did, too.”

In December 1945, a high point for Vazakas while awaiting publication of "Transfigured Night" was a joint reading with Tennessee Williams in the YMHA Poetry Center in New York. The following year Vazakas moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he lived for the next 16 years, although always maintaining close ties with Reading. He enjoyed an association with the literary group centered on Archibald MacLeish that included John Ciardi and Richard Wilbur. Vazakas continued writing poetry and having it published in an increasing number of periodicals including Poetry, Poetry Magazine, Crossing Section, Western Review, and some anthologies. He gave occasional lectures and readings at Harvard University and one at Brown University. On four occasions he received fellowships to summer colonies at Breadloaf, VT; Yaddo, NY; and McDowell, NH. His second volume, The Equal Tribunals, was published in 1962. The following year, on the recommendation of Archibald MacLeish, he won an Amy Lowell Traveling Scholarship for 1962-63, renewed for 1963-64, and went to England. He visited Paris and Majorca, but chiefly spent his time in southern England.

In 1944 Vazakas described his poetry as “a kind of cadenced prose with the poetry in the content . . . rather than in the practice.” He abhorred the strictures imposed by rhyme, meter, and traditional “forms” like the sonnet. Instead, he emphasized the value of “the words themselves” in conveying “an attitude or aspect personally experienced and felt.” Three decades later Vazakas revised that first description. He said, “It may sound like merely cadenced poetry, but most is pure iambic.” He explained that the iambic mode might be obscured by the lack of rhyme and the use of enjambment.

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."

By 1935, Vazakas had written 1,500 poems imitating every style and rhyme scheme he had encountered. He regarded these as practice poems and asked his friend, Galleon editor Lloyd Arthur Eshbach, to destroy them, as he did, when Vazakas said he had found his true poetic voice. Only 22 early poems survive. Thus Byron Vazakas was able to emerge as a mature poet in his first volume, Transfigured Night.

Vazakas established himself as a writer in Reading, but only a small number of people knew that he wrote poetry. These were the members of the Galleon Writers’ Guild, a group that produced 6 issues of a local literary magazine called "The Galleon: A Journal of Literary Achievement." Vazakas’ first published poem, a 5-line piece entitled “Grief,” appeared in the first issue in November 1934, and five other poems, including one published anonymously and two under the pseudonym "Mernos," and one short story appeared in other issues. In 1935 two other poems were published in a small literary magazine called "The Bard." By this time Vazakas had written 1,500 poems. All but 22 of them were destroyed at his request when Vazakas said that he had found his true poetic voice. When discussing his career in later years, Vazakas never mentioned either "The Galleon" or "The Bard" or the large body of early work.

In 1922 Byron and his family moved to Reading, Pennsylvania, to live with his widowed grandmother. Byron continued to live with his mother at various locations near City Park until her death in December 1940. At first Byron worked in a clothing store and later collected rents for the Reading Company. After he left that job, out of boredom and frustration, his family never pressured him to seek employment, even during the Great Depression.

Byron Vazakas (September 24, 1905, New York City - September 30, 1987, Reading, Pennsylvania) was an American poet, whose career extended from the modernist era well into the postmodernist period; nominee for the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1947.

Byron A. Vazakas was the son of Alfred Vazakas, a Greek-born linguist who emigrated sometime before 1900 and established a language school in Herald Square, and Margaret Keffer, a young woman who grew up in Reading, Pennsylvania, the daughter of a former Pennsylvania state legislator, Rep. Aaron T. C. Keffer, a descendant of Henry Clay. There were two younger Vazakas children, Alexander (1906) and Donald (1912). Byron had strong memories of New York City during the years he called his happy “Edwardian childhood.” Both Byron and Alexander (Alex) attended a progressive Montessori School. Tragedy struck during Christmas week 1912 when Alfred Vazakas died suddenly of pneumonia and the family was left destitute.