Hyam Plutzik (1911–1962) was a poet and Professor of English at the University of Rochester. He was born in Brooklyn born in Brooklyn on July 13, 1911, the son of recent immigrants from what is now Belarus. He spoke only Yiddish, Hebrew and Russian until the age of seven, when he enrolled in grammar school near Southbury, Connecticut. Plutzik graduated from Trinity College in 1932, and was one of the first Jewish students to attend Yale University, where he completed his graduate studies.His poem “The Three” won the Cooke Prize at Yale in 1933.

Plutzik’s published three collections of poetry during his lifetime: Aspects of Proteus (Harper and Row,1949); Apples from Shinar (Wesleyan University Press, 1959); and Horatio (Atheneum, 1961), which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry that year. BOA Editions published Hyam Plutzik: The Collected Poems in 1987.