Saul Bennett, a former longtime resident of Great Neck, who worked in public relations for 33 years before becoming a poet, died last Sunday at his home in Woodstock, NY. He was 69. The apparent cause was heart failure.

Mr. Bennett was born on October 21, 1936, to Ruth Weinstein and Philip Ostrove. He grew up in Sunnyside, Queens, attended Stuyvesant High School, and graduated from Ohio University in 1957. After beginning his career at the Rowland Company, he moved to Robert Marston & Associates, where he rose to become president of Marketing Communications. After his retirement in 1996, he continued to be sought out as a PR consultant.

It was the sudden death of his first child Sara at age 24 that compelled him to write about her and the effect of her death on the family. Once he started "making poems," as he liked to put it, he uncovered a natural facility for the craft and wrote prolifically. In addition to grief, his poems recorded with tenderness and humor his childhood memories of Queens, along with his trenchant reflections on being Jewish and the complexities of contemporary life.

The poems found an eager audience. His first book, New Fields and Other Stones. On A Child's Death, was published in 1998 and won the Benjamin Franklin Award from the Publishers Marketing Association. Michael Bugeja wrote, "As a poet who has also lost a child, and written about it, I have great admiration for the courage, grace, and voice of memory/experience that Saul Bennett shares in this moving, redemptive collection. This is as strong a debut as any poet has made into the world of letters."

A second collection of poems, Harpo Marx at Prayer, appeared two years later. Christian Century magazine wrote, "Bennett creates a unique idiom...And yet also shows the fingerprints of a tradition...Like all great poetry, these poems connect with something larger."

In addition to a chapbook, Jesus Matinees and Other Poems, his work has also appeared in most of the major poetry magazines. At the time of his death, he was putting the finishing touches on another book-length collection entitled Sea Dust.

A well-known local radio host referred to him as the godfather of Hudson Valley poetry. He regularly introduced local poets on that program and was known for his generosity in promoting others work. Many of his childhood friends and acquaintances found warm references in his poems and he gave numerous readings throughout the tri-state area.

He is survived by his wife Joan, son Charles and daughter Lizzy.