On Sunday evening, August 6, Saul Bennett died of a heart attack. From what his wife Joan has told me, he was on their screened-in porch seated at the table with papers scattered about him, then went into the kitchen for a glass of water. Outside at the barbecue, she heard him collapse. She rushed in to find him sitting up but feeling dizzy. She led him upstairs to bed, then dialed 911. The ambulance arrived within minutes. But the medics couldn't find a pulse.

Several weeks ago Saul fainted twice over several days. An advance warning? Who knows. He went to the hospital, then to his doctor. The diagnosis was that he had a bladder infection and a fever. His medicine had lowered his blood pressure. Plus it was hot. Soon afterward, he had a brain scan and he wore a heart monitor for a day, two tests that found nothing wrong. By the time he told me about these problems, we were joking. A brain scan: "Did they find one?" I asked. "The remnants, at least," Saul shot back. I don't think he, or anyone else, had any inkling his health was at risk. Saul was 69, but the youngest 69 I knew. And these days 69 is young to begin with.

Wednesday, August 9, Saul was buried on Long Island beside his oldest daughter Sara. She died twelve years ago, at age 24 of a brain aneurysm, a tragedy that propelled Saul into poetry. At that time he worked in public relations in Manhattan, as president of the firm. He didn't know any other poets or know much about the poetry world. Yet once he began writing poems, he took off. In one year he made 150 poems. (Saul liked to say "making poems," as if they were food dishes meant to nourish you.) He met a community of other poets at Poets House in the City and found a mentor in Michael Bugeja, an established poet and author of The Art and Craft of Poetry.

In time Saul retired, and he and Joan moved to Woodstock. He published New Fields and Other Stones: On a Child's Death, a book about Sara. Then came Harpo Marx at Prayer, a book that included poems about his upbringing in Sunnyside, Queens in the Forties. In this book he describes losing his father and mother within a year when he was in his early twenties. (His father died within 45 minutes in front of his eyes.) So Saul faced a lot of grief in his life. Maybe that's what made him one of the most humane and caring people I've ever known.

I'd like to think Saul was working on his current manuscript, Sea Dust, in the moments before he died. (I haven't confirmed this with Joan, but I have my suspicions.) When I saw him on Thursday afternoon for coffee at Joshua's in Woodstock-one of our regular dates to share poems and talk about life-he said he was making great progress on this manuscript. It included a long homage to Gerard Manley Hopkins, the poet Saul put next to God. It also included some nature poems, a departure for Saul. It took many risks. (Saul's highest praise for a poet was, "She's a real risk taker.") And most of all it gave him tremendous satisfaction.

Saul did me many favors. He did many people many favors. Among those for me: He helped me publish my first chapbook. He critiqued hundreds of draft poems over coffees and lunches. He came to my readings. And more, much more. One of his favorite tricks when critiquing my poems was to draw a line across the middle of the page-essentially cutting my baby in half-then say with delight, "You've got a twofer here!" I had a "twofer" with Saul: a great reader and a great friend. Many people had a "twofer" with Saul in their own ways. In talking with his friends this past week, I've learned of another poetry book he helped to get published, a visit he paid to his editor at an artist's colony, a dinner he treated to a woman who'd lost her job. As another friend said to me, "He was a true gentleman."

Although we haven't made plans yet, we do want to hold a memorial gathering and reading in Saul's honor. This week his wife Joan is sitting shiva at their house on 167 Broadview in Woodstock for those who may want to join her in mourning. And Saul is survived by two grown children, Lizzy and Charles, whom I'm getting to know and enjoy visiting with. They will be spending time in Woodstock with Joan.

Here's a poem of Saul's the family asked me to read at his funeral:

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The Dismantling of an American


I stopped with all the American
business after my child died

suddenly; the Brooks-bloop
button-downs, their pants without

pleats, flags on holidays, baseball
cock-a-doodle-doo with clients, age eight

bourbon, Bean catalogs, crab
claws. I was this-Jew.

#

If I might add a final word: Saul also became a Poet. And a great friend to us all.

Will Nixon

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