Steven B. Smith (poet)

Smith married poet Lady K in 2006. They began their relationship shortly after the death of Mother Dwarf in 2005. In 2006 Smith and his wife sold their home, gave away all of their possessions, and moved to Europe. His most recent book, Where Never Was Already Is (published in 2018), includes several decades of his poetry as well as many black and white examples of his collage art.

In 2005 Smith's life hit a series of highs and lows. His mother died, he fell in love, he retired, and then discovered he had throat cancer. He published the final issue of ArtCrimes in 2006.

Smith's "resume" was published in an article from 2000:

In an interview in 2000, Smith claimed his voice was raspy "because I don't talk to anyone anymore." He'd become a recluse whose doormat said "Go Away." He said, "I had to learn silence. People only remember the old days when I shocked people with what I said or made or did. But there's a lot of beauty in the things I've done."

Smith nearly died in 1991 from alcohol, and has been sober since then. One notable drunken episode was after an art auction. He'd bid loudly on every piece offered. He took a walk home with Mother Dwarf. He passed a fence of barking dogs, and started to howl "in communion." He leaned up over the dogs and they bit his scalp. The next day, Smith asked Mother Dwarf why he was covered in blood. "You mean..." she said, "You don't remember the dogs?"

Starting in 1986, Smith published the Cleveland cult underground publication ArtCrimes, a zine full of images and poems which also shared his disrespect for authority. ArtCrimes took on the spirit of Smith's journals, like a sketchbook that's been passed around to dozens of different artists. The zine was influenced by the beats, and was consistent with the style of publications from the days of Kerouac, Corso, and Ginsberg.

Smith and his friend and frequent collaborator S. Judson Wilcox were two early "urban pioneers": artists who settled the Warehouse District in Cleveland in 1981. Artists, musicians and renegades moved there to revel in Cleveland's industrial beauty. The warehouse district was a haven.

The affordability of Cleveland neighborhoods periodically caused mass migrations of artists. In the 1980s, Smith was one of the urban pioneers to move into the Warehouse District. In '85, he was one of many artists who moved from the warehouses to Tremont, in the typical pattern where artists move into undesirable but inexpensive neighborhoods, fixing up old buildings in which to live and work.

Smith married into an East Coast blue-blood family in 1969. In 1970, he was arrested for armed robbery. [1] Smith lived in Baltimore and other cities before coming to Cleveland in 1977 in pursuit of another man's wife. She then divorced her husband and decided to marry someone other than Smith.

In 1968 Smith was one of thirteen middies ousted by the Naval Academy for smoking pot. He haggled a deal with the government upon discharge; they agreed to pay for his education. He went on to receive a bachelor's degree in English and philosophy with a 3.8 GPA from Loyola College in Maryland.

Steven B. Smith (born 1946 in Wallace, Idaho), is an underground artist and poet from Cleveland, Ohio. He published ArtCrimes, a zine influenced by the beats. Smith's art and poetry uses cultural themes as found objects with a Dadaist influence.