Art Stein

Art Stein (born Arthur Leon Stein, Jr., December 28, 1928, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A.; died September 30, 2010, Northfield, Massachusetts), architect, poet, and haiku poet. He was a member of the Haiku Society of America from 1997 and participated in Vincent Tripi’s Haiku Circle. He published Blonde Red Mustang …, a chapbook of his haiku, haibun, tanka, and free-verse poems in 2006. Stein last lived in Northfield, Mass.

Background

The eldest son of Arthur L. and Dorothea Stein. Arthur Jr. grew up in the New York City area and earned a degree in architecture from Syracuse University in 1949. He married Margaret Watts Studdiford (1930–2011), an artist, in 1950. He saw service with the U.S. Army scientific and professional personnel in Edgewood, Md., during the Korean War, 1951–1953.

He moved to Greenfield, Mass., in 1953, and worked as a draftsman for James Britton, later becoming licensed as an architect, eventually establishing his own practice in partnership with John Bednarski and Rudd Falconer.

Art and Margaret Stein built a house on Mountain Road in Greenfield, where they lived for 45 years before semi-retiring and moving to Northfield, Mass., in 1998. They had three daughters, Alexandra, Jennifer, and Elizabeth, the last of whom predeceased her parents. In addition to his poetry, Art was an active member of the Stockade Players of Old Deerfield, Mass., both as an actor and in lighting and production, and was an avid vegetable gardener. At the age of 50, he became an avid horseman, competing in events in northwestern Massachusetts.

Art Stein’s Haikai

Stein also cultivated an interest in poetry, attending the workshops of writer and poet Genie Zeiger, and was a regular participant in the poetry readings at Arms Library in Shelburne Falls, Mass. In 2004 he was instrumental in the founding of Slate Roof Press, a member-run publishing house then in Turner’s Falls, Mass. (now in Northfield) dedicated to promoting the work of local poets. Stein’s chapbook collection, Blonde, Red Mustang …: A Gathering of Small Poems , was published by Slate Roof in 2006.

Stein wrote verse in many forms, including free verse, haiku, and tanka. He joined the Haiku Society of America in 1997 and participated in Vincent Tripi’s Haiku Circle. He was a featured reader at the Haiku Circle in 2010. He began publishing his haiku and senryu in Frogpond and Modern Haiku in 1997 and in Black Bough, The Nor‘easter, Point Judith Light , and the Canada-based RAW NerVZ a year or so later. In the mid-2000s he added Paper Wasp (Australia), Simply Haiku, Lynx, Bottle Rockets (one of his favorites), and Hummingbird to his haikai résumé. He found similar success with the tanka and mainstream poetry journals.

Here are a few of Art Stein’s most well-received haiku and senryu together with their place of first publication.

a new loneliness— filling the bed with pillows	Frogpond 20:2 (September 1997)
at their wedding a new heir apparent	Frogpond 20:2 (September 1997)
slowly unfurling the morning glory accepts a bee	Frogpond 20:2 (September 1997)
preparing the new garden for the woodchuck	John Sheirer, ed., Bridge Traffic (1998)
spring night still pond two moons	Point Judith Light, Fall–Winter 1998
smiling stupidly I try to enjoy my 69th birthday	RAW NerVZ 6:3 (Fall 1999)
nest of black hair secured with ball-point pens office geisha	HSA Gerald M. Brady Awards, 2002, Third Place
late spring snow wild turkeys moving the landscape	1st Annual Zen Garden Haiku Contest, 2003, Runner Up
learning a foreign language her tongue in my ear	Modern Haiku 36:3 (Autumn 2005)
pond scum a cannonball divides it	Modern Haiku 37:2 (Summer 2006), Modern Haiku Award (senryu)
pretty blind blonde her seeing-eye dog stares back at me	Paper Wasp (2006)
my shadow so big I can’t begin to fill it	From the haibun “Witness” in Blonde, Red Mustang …: (2006)
through the fog of our last evening her taillights	Modern Haiku 38:2 (Summer 2007)
final test there are no more multiple choices	Bottle Rockets 21 (11:1, 2009)

Art Stein died September 30, 2010, aged 81 following a protracted illness. His friend Stanford Forrester indicated that Stein considered the following his death haiku:

my shadow
now includes
a cane

Forrester, “Art Stein.” Ripples 25:3 (December 2010) originally published in Bottle Rockets 18 (2008)

Modern Haiku selected these haiku and published them in issue 42:1 (Winter–Spring 2011) in Stein’s memory:

awkward that brief stage between birth & death	Originally published in Modern Haiku 39:2
on a train facing backwards an old dream	Originally published in Modern Haiku 41:3 (Autumn 2010)
now each day I pluck at the seams and reflect	Originally published in Modern Haiku 41:3 (Autumn 2010)

Sources / Further Reading

Chapbook

Stein, Art. Blonde, Red Mustang …: A Gathering of Small Poems. Northfield, Mass.: Slate Roof Publishing, 2006.

Haiku and senryu in anthologies

Kacian, Jim, and the Red Moon editorial staff, eds. The Red Moon Anthology 1997. Berryville, Va.: Red Moon Press, 1998. 1 senryu.
Stevenson, John, ed. From a Kind Neighbor: Haiku Society of America Members’ Anthology 1997. New York: Haiku Society of America, 1997. 1 haiku.
Sheirer, John, ed. Bridge Traffic: Haiku and Related Poetry by People of the Massachusetts Pioneer Valley. Enfield, Conn. / Colrain, Mass.: Tiny Poems Press / Winfred Press, 1998. 12 haiku.
Colón, Carlos, ed. Voices and Echoes: Haiku Society of America Members’ Anthology 2001. New York: Haiku Society of America, 2001. 1 haiku.
Kirschner, Joseph, Lidia Rozmus, and Charles Trumbull, eds. A Travel-worn Satchel: The Haiku Society of America Members’ Anthology 2009. New York: Haiku Society of America, 2009. 1 haiku.
Forrester, Stanford M., ed. Seed Packets: An Anthology of Flower Haiku. Windsor, Conn.: Bottle Rockets Press, 2010. 3 haiku.
Epstein, Robert, ed. Dreams Wander On: Contemporary Poems of Death Awareness. Baltimore: Modern English Tanka Press, 2011.
Beuttner, Marjorie, ed. This World of Dew [2012]. Prepared for presentation at Haiku North America 2011.

Reviews and biographical information

“Arthur L. Stein.” Greenfield Recorder, October 8, 2010. Obituary.
Forrester, Stanford M. “Art Stein.” Ripples: Haiku Society of America Newsletter 25:3 (December 2010). Obituary.
Kei, M. Review of Blonde, Red Mustang, Lynx 22:1 (February 2007).
“Notices: Art Stein.” Modern Haiku 42:1 (Winter–Spring 2011), 126–7. Obituary.
Marjorie Buettner. “There Is a Season: Memorial Reading, ” Haiku North America—2011, Seattle. Unpublished.

Periodicals publishing Stein’s haiku and senryu

Frogpond, 1997–2002.
Modern Haiku, 1997–2007.
Point Judith Light, 1998.
Black Bough, 1998.
The Nor’Easter, 1998.
RAW NerVZ, 1999–2002.
Paper Wasp, 2004–2006.
Simply Haiku, 2005.
Lynx, 2007.
Bottle Rockets, 2008–2010.
Hummingbird, 2008.

Books with Stein’s free verse and tanka

Garrison, Denis M., and Michael McClintock, eds. Landfall: Poetry of Place in Modern English Tanka. Baltimore: Modern English Tanka Press, 2007.
McClintock, Michael, Pamela Miller Ness, and Jim Kacian, eds. The Tanka Anthology: Tanka in English from Around the World. Winchester, Va.: Red Moon Press, 2003.
Stein, Art. Blonde, Red Mustang …: A Gathering of Small Poems. Northfield, Mass.: Slate Roof Publishing, 2006.

Journals with Stein’s free verse and tanka

American Tanka
BOGG (U.K.)
The Chrysalis Reader
Equinox
Faquier
Hermitage (Romania)
Poetry Motel
Sahara
Tundra
zEtna—Magazine under the Volcano (Hungary / Montenegro)

Activities

Member, Haiku Society of America, 1997–2010
Participated in the Haiku Circle; featured speaker, 2010

Awards

HSA Gerald M. Brady Awards, 2002, Third Place
1st Annual Zen Garden Haiku Contest, 2003, Runner Up (1 of 17)
Favorite senryu of issue, Modern Haiku 37:2 (Summer 2006)

Compiled by the Haikupedia Editors

Updated on March 28, 2025