He studied at Columbia University in New York City with Kenneth Koch, David Shapiro, Barbara Stoler Miller, Burton Watson, and Elaine Pagels, graduating in 1980.

"[6] He also has taught creative writing to primary and secondary school students on local and national levels and written extensively on that work, included in his book Listener in the Snow: The Practice and Teaching of Poetry (2000).

We are taken to the living moment as it passes.” Major Jackson: “...an eclectic imagination that redeems the conventional exploits of language and all the dead zones around us...consecrates Statman's forever voice.” Aliki Barnstone calls him “a consummate poet-translator.”[14][15] In noting the influence of Williams, Pound, and Creeley, the critic Eileen Murphy wrote, of Exile Home, "The book has the almost-hypnotic effect of one big, sprawling poem--reminding me of Whitman's Leaves of Grass or Ginsberg's "Howl.

Poet John Koethe called it “an endless source of delight.” Joanna Fuhrman wrote: “His words cast a spell on the reader…” and Michael Anania: “This is a powerful collection, personal, in the most richly evolved sense.” With the publication of Poet in New York in 2008 and the appearance of Tourist at a Miracle in 2010, Statman, who had primarily read his poetry and talked about his work as a teacher of creative writing in the New York City and tri-state area and at academic and professional meetings, began appearing at national and international venues.

Among the more prominent sites are the Times Cheltenham Festival (UK),[17] the Miami Book Fair International,[18] US Poets in Mexico,[19] and the Mundial Poético de Montevideo (UY).