Biography

Stephen was born in 1949 to two recent University of Dayton Graduates. His father James was an accountant and CFO for New Idea farm equipment and his mother Marian majored in Psychology and taught second grade for many years. Stephen and his siblings were raised in a small Ohio farming community where they learned to explore the world around them through their imaginations and using the fullness of their senses. Their world was family, Catholicism, small town dynamics, politics and books, lots and lots of books.

After graduating from Saint Louis University, Stephen applied for and received Conscientious Objectors status during the Vietnam War. He completed his alternative service working in a boy’s home in San Francisco. Energized and injured during the Harvey Milk riots, Stephen continued his advocacy and commitment to gay rights throughout his life. The loss of many dear friends to AIDS deeply affected his view of life and the world.

Upon returning to Boston, Stephen completed a Master of Arts in Creative Writing at Boston University reading with poets Derek Walcott and George Starbuck. After graduating, he began work as a Lecturer in the University’s Writing Program. And for the next 27 years taught courses in a wide variety of subjects, with an emphasis on the sonnets of Shakespeare, Lakoff’s metaphor analysis and Chomsky’s generative grammar theory. Stephen also taught collaboratively with professors from the physics and biology departments on subjects like the neurobiological basis of consciousness, and the intersection of traditional ethics and recent bio-medical technologies. He loved teaching and was honored to receive the School’s Humanities Foundation Teaching Award in 2000.

Following his retirement Stephen was able to spend as much time as he wished on his poetry. It was his lifelong fascination with and his love of language that fueled his work. Steve died in June of 2023.