Peter Payack is the widely acclaimed poet and writer including multiple appearances in The Paris Review, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The Cornell Review, The Boston Globe and over three dozen poems in both Amazing Science Fiction Stories, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazines and Creative Computing. He has Published over 1,500 poems, stories, prose poems, photos and articles. His Poem, The Migration of Darkness, won the 1980 Rhysling Award, signifying The Best Poem in Science Fiction Poetry.
His work has been anthologized extensively including pieces in Knowing & Writing, New Perspectives on Classical Questions (Harper Collins), Astronomy, from the Earth to the Universe (Saunders College Publishing), and The Poets’ Encyclopedia (Unmuzzled Ox), The Paris Review Anthology (Norton), The Alchemy of Stars (SPFA) and Burning With a Vision (Owlswick Press.)
At a poetry performance at UMass Boston. (1980)
Payack is the inventor of the world-renowned Stonehenge Watch™, an infinitesimal replica of the megaliths at Stonehenge inside of an old-fashioned pocket watch, which can be used as a shadow clock to tell time, mark the seasons and predict eclipses. The Stonehenge Watch™ has been featured at The International Sky Art Conference at MIT, on BBC-TV, in Astronomy and has been for sale at the Stonehenge site itself.
He has published 6 nationally distributed books, the latest, Blanket Knowledge, (Zoland Books).
As a Sky Artist Payack has been commissioned to do environmental poetry projects for The New York Avant Garde Festival, The International Sky Art Conference (MIT), The Harvard 350 Celebration and Boston’s First Night.
Peter is an Assistant Professor and teaches Communications at The Berklee College of Music, University of Massachusetts Lowell and UMass Online.
When not writing poetry, teaching or inventing new things, he can be found coaching The Cambridge Rindge & Latin School wrestling team or running. He has run 24 marathons, including 12 Boston Marathons.
Payack in his study with his Poetry Mobile. (1982)