George Economou

George Economou authored 14 books of poetry and translations, including Complete Plus: The Poems of C. P. Cavafy in English (2013), Ananios of Kleitor (2009), Acts of Love: Ancient Greek Poetry from Aphrodite’s Garden (2006), and Finishing Cavafy’s Unfinished & Selected Poems and Translations (2015). His work 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 the press Trobar Books.

Economou earned a BA from Colgate and a PhD in medieval English and comparative literature at Columbia University. 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 and director of creative writing, the Brooklyn Center of Long Island University, Hunter College, and Columbia University.

A Rockefeller fellow at Bellagio and a two-time NEA fellow, Economou gave readings and lectures throughout the United States and in numerous countries. He was married to poet and playwright Rochelle Owens. The couple lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where Economou died in 2019.