The Work of Stephen Gardner and How I Came to Love Poetry

Stephen Gardner was the first professor to teach me poetry. This is one of his poems which I emulated years later:

2 a.m., Incense, a quart of gin, my dog with a bone

--for Jim Peterson

Outside the rain has finally begun to end.
The quiet here among these books
Has all the elements, I know,

Of murders in the dark:
Of blood, and gagging on that blood.
I stroke his fur, I feel his breath

Move the hair on my hand.
I light a candle against the dark.
But he hears things I cannot hear.

So I invent. I invent madmen
Walking just beyond our sight,
Leaning, listening outside the door,

Scentless so he cannot know they move
Within the circle of our life.
The ice rattles against my glass.

The flame dances. He stops to hear.
And when he does
All breathing in this room

Jerks to an end. I take a drink.
The candle steadies.
The Bone snaps between his teeth.

--Stephen Gardner

*Published in Southern Review*