William Seaton is a well-known American scholar and poet. Seaton is author of Spoor of Desire (FootHills Publishing, 2008), Tourist Snapshots (CCMarimbo, 2008), andCold Water (Monkey’s Press, 1999). His poetry, reviews, translations, and essays have recently appeared in Poetry Flash, Chiron Review, Gander Press Review, Wordsmith,Edison Review, Home Planet News, Heaven Bone, and Chronogram.
Also known for his translations of ancient Greek lyrics and medieval troubadours, Seaton was educated in the University of Illinois’ English Department and the University ofIowa’s Comparative Literature Program including work in translation under Anselm Hollo and Stavros Deligiorgis in the Translation Workshop. He has received such academic honors as the Helen Fairall Scholarship Award and the Ada Louise Ballard Fellowship in the Humanities.
His scholarly articles concern topics ranging from a medieval mystic to African American oral rhymed narratives, and his teaching experience is equally broad, including positions at Long Island and Adelphi Universities, a New York state prison, and high school in the Niger Delta of West Africa.
For decades Seaton has translated the poets of the early twentieth century Dada movement as well as engaging in Dada-inspired performance events beginning with “happenings” in the 60s, through the guerilla poetry of Cloud House in the 70s, and recent Surreal Cabarets at the Seligmann Center for the Arts. Some of these translations of twentieth century German Dada poets have been published in periodical form in Chelsea, Adirondack Review, Read and Destroy, Maintenant, and Mad Blood.
He directs the Poetry on the Loose Reading/Performance Series in New York’s Hudson Valley, heads the Northeast Poetry Center and its College of Poetry(www.collegeofpoetry.com), and posts five essays, literary and familiar, every month at williamseaton.blogspot.com.