Son of Stephen is an old idea. In 1994, Doctor Stephen Gardner had me in his poetry class. The first half of the class was filled with many students writing poetry, including myself, followed by a large portfolio project. During this time, myself and many other students were mentored by one of the most caring and correct professors to teach. His own style of proper teaching, and guidance guided more than a number of people into the realm of poetry and writing, and pushed us to do the best we could. I was lucky at this time to have been in a class with such talented individuals as John Lowery and Monica Garvin Dees. Jannette Giles Hypes was also in my class, and my connection to Stephen Gardner strengthened my connection to many other students, including Clay Morton and many other people.
There was an unspoken connection between writing students, and we celebrated each other and felt proud to have been taught by the professors of USC-Aiken.
After leaving the University of South Carolina at Aiken, I ventured forward into the world of Academia, where I went to graduate school.
Back home Stephen Gardner continued what he'd always done, mentor, guide and teach aspiring students and from that teaching, he inspired so many students to strive for excellence.
Son of Stephen, or maybe I should say, Sons and Daughters of Stephen exists to pay homage and honor Stephen Gardner, who taught us so much beyond being simply a teacher. He was like a father to so many.
These blog posts highlight through poetry, (Some of Stephen's own and some inspired by Stephen), essay and visuals the skill that Stephen Gardner mentored in people.
I welcome any student of Stephen's to submit something personal to this blog, so Stephen's legacy and family live on.
Contributions
Jannette Giles's "Late June."
Jannette Giles's " "Raking."
James Enelow's "Darkness into Light: An Introduction to Why He Doesn't Sleep."
James's intro complete with poem links to the Stephen Gardners poems that inspired and the poems written in homage to Stephen's original work.
James Enelow's "For Doctor Stephen Gardner Who loved His Students."
Contributors
Saturday, July 5, 2014
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Late June (Poems for Stephen Gardner)
Late June
For Stephen L. Gardner
More than seven months since I lifted your hand
from the hospital bed, my thumb petting its warm
dry back, rougher than imagined, trying to coax
out the coma through the pores, summer arrived:
heat before the Solstice, pouring in on the ferns,
exploding the lilies, open-mouths of spotted petals,
stamen reddish brown as the psoriasis on your skin.
Because there is no gravesite to visit, headstone
to trace with fingers pressed in to carved out words,
I memorialize you often and in strange places: once,
my tires crunched an ice cream cone, sweet and brittle
on asphalt. I imagined ashes stuck in tire tread, traveling.
At night, curled in the hospital recliner, your breath
too rhythmic to be natural, I searched for the silence
I could sleep in. Some moments you were present
as someone resting; in others, the room was empty
of you: I questioned your consciousness, how much
you were seeing, hearing of this room full of wife,
mother, friends, me—somewhere between student
and daughter, never one and not the other.
In your last days I wondered if I was doing it right,
questioned the proper vigils to take: hand holding,
consoling, praying, reading Roethke—sure familiar
vibrations of words would reach, maybe even wake,
you. When they didn’t, I went back to rubbing, this time
the thumbs, letting gravity and the natural bend
of your fingers hold my hand in return.
Now, when June turns to July and fireflies are lazy,
dotting the shadowy undersides of maple leaves,
I return to writing poems. It is what you taught me.
It keeps you close. Syllables bloom into stanzas,
wrap the page in pigment and ash.
Contributors
Jannette Hypes is a graduate of USC-Aiken where she studied poetry and life with Dr. Stephen Gardner who later became her stepfather by some strange and wonderful twist of fate. Although a South Carolina native, she became an East Tennessean in 1998. Her poetry has appeared in Breathing the Same Air: An East Tennessee Anthology (Celtic Cat Publishing, 2001); The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume I: South Carolina (Texas Review, 2007); Outscapes: Writings on Fences and Frontiers (Knoxville Writers’ Guild, 2008); The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume III: Contemporary Appalachia (Texas Review, 2011); and most recently The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume VI: Tennessee (Texas Review Press, 2013).
Tribute Poems for Stephen Gardner
Raking
For Stephen L. Gardner
To clear this land could take months.
Readying for winter, so leaves won’t freeze
To clear this land could take months.
Readying for winter, so leaves won’t freeze
then mold in the thaw of spring, I row
through this backyard pushing piles
large as my car street-side. Red-browns
on top, wet-black underneath, heavier
than they ought to be. Trees are empty,
even of birds. Shoulders tighten, burn;
palms tingle in spots sure to whiten, peel,
leave skin rich-pink and ripe to air like grass
pale beneath leaves: newborn and dying
together. In this place, this half-worked
yard of bare oak and splaying dogwood,
everything speaks your distant and holy
language: glass chimes clink, catch sun,
dazzle bark with bending light. A ribbon
of blackbirds finds wind, glides away.
by Jannette Giles
Friday, June 27, 2014
For Doctor Stephen Gardner Who Loved His Students
Stephen Gardner is my mentor.
Even now, I write this with shaky hands, and I am inconsolable, and I want to sleep and cry until the world melts away.
Once, I told him he was my mentor, and I he turned away from me and tried to change the subject because I was a long-haired kid with scant ability in English and lots of trouble with grammar. To make things worse, I was a journalist, but the truth is my heart had already turned away from journalism. In my heart, I betrayed Journalism for the beauty of poetry and literature which moved me, but I never voiced clear enough.
Under Stephen’s teaching, my heart soared in ways that journalism failed to move me--even to a remote twitter, nor could I explain in some ways how lines written by the strange men and women called poets made me cry, shiver and wish inside that I could write like them.
Perhaps it was that no teacher before him cared for me, or that I was unaware of this “love” before Doctor Gardner. When later others came forward--Dr. Davidson who was tough but fair--Dr. Bell, who seemed like a mom that all the neighborhood kids could run to--Dr. Claxon who was always encouraging.
But Doctor Stephen Gardner was the ultimate hero to me. He radiated something that was subdued and sublime. He spoke with a southern accent that made me feel good to be a southerner and to be male.
He radiated a machismo, not that other professors turned against my maleness, but there was something of an adult responsibility in him that made me want to be responsible. He gave me a key to his office, and that key saved me once when someone was hounding me, and I was able to simply disappear.
Such a brazen act could never be talked about, but sometimes when I needed to be alone, and the world was too much, I could go to Doctor Gardner's office and hide.
There I could read old “Millhoppers” or Richard Hugo Poems, and pull down copies from his journal collections and poems. No other professor ever allowed this.
One other professor once let me use one of her books as long as I stayed in her office. I had no pen or paper, so I dared to use her computer to type some notes. As you may have guessed, she caught me and once again, I spent an undeserved hour being told I was irresponsible and rude. Events such as this made me turn from journalism as if it were a plague victim.
In contrast, Stephen never hesitated to loan me books. Stephen allowed me to use his computer. Stephen was neither petty, nor obtuse over trivial matters, but when it mattered Stephen was there. When I asked him about graduate school, he helped me pick out choices, and then with a open and direct hand pointed to a ¼ page ad for McNeese State, which essentially said we only want to see your poetry. And at that moment, I wanted to go. My heart was set--I had to get into that program. There was no other choice.
Three other programs wanted me, but I wanted McNeese. And when McNeese came through, I called Doctor Gardner at his home. He was the third to know, and he knew my heart was set, even though I think he might have suggested NC State or Kansas State University, his words uplifted,“I know your heart is at McNeese.” That was one of his greatest talents. He knew the hearts of his students.
Stephen let me read his signed copies, including his Jim Peterson book, and his own Honor’s Thesis of poems, which I copied behind his back and knew he would tell me not to read, not to model myself after, but he was wrong. He was just as talented as anyone he pointed me too, but he had what every hotshot slick poetry MFA Student today lacks—modesty.
And that is why Stephen Gardner is my mentor and why I am now inconsolable, shaky and unable to sleep though I have reached that age where morning writing is my true time, and where even now as I write this I will soon fall into bed and weep until the world melts away.
Even now, I write this with shaky hands, and I am inconsolable, and I want to sleep and cry until the world melts away.
Once, I told him he was my mentor, and I he turned away from me and tried to change the subject because I was a long-haired kid with scant ability in English and lots of trouble with grammar. To make things worse, I was a journalist, but the truth is my heart had already turned away from journalism. In my heart, I betrayed Journalism for the beauty of poetry and literature which moved me, but I never voiced clear enough.
Under Stephen’s teaching, my heart soared in ways that journalism failed to move me--even to a remote twitter, nor could I explain in some ways how lines written by the strange men and women called poets made me cry, shiver and wish inside that I could write like them.
Perhaps it was that no teacher before him cared for me, or that I was unaware of this “love” before Doctor Gardner. When later others came forward--Dr. Davidson who was tough but fair--Dr. Bell, who seemed like a mom that all the neighborhood kids could run to--Dr. Claxon who was always encouraging.
But Doctor Stephen Gardner was the ultimate hero to me. He radiated something that was subdued and sublime. He spoke with a southern accent that made me feel good to be a southerner and to be male.
He radiated a machismo, not that other professors turned against my maleness, but there was something of an adult responsibility in him that made me want to be responsible. He gave me a key to his office, and that key saved me once when someone was hounding me, and I was able to simply disappear.
Such a brazen act could never be talked about, but sometimes when I needed to be alone, and the world was too much, I could go to Doctor Gardner's office and hide.
There I could read old “Millhoppers” or Richard Hugo Poems, and pull down copies from his journal collections and poems. No other professor ever allowed this.
One other professor once let me use one of her books as long as I stayed in her office. I had no pen or paper, so I dared to use her computer to type some notes. As you may have guessed, she caught me and once again, I spent an undeserved hour being told I was irresponsible and rude. Events such as this made me turn from journalism as if it were a plague victim.
In contrast, Stephen never hesitated to loan me books. Stephen allowed me to use his computer. Stephen was neither petty, nor obtuse over trivial matters, but when it mattered Stephen was there. When I asked him about graduate school, he helped me pick out choices, and then with a open and direct hand pointed to a ¼ page ad for McNeese State, which essentially said we only want to see your poetry. And at that moment, I wanted to go. My heart was set--I had to get into that program. There was no other choice.
Three other programs wanted me, but I wanted McNeese. And when McNeese came through, I called Doctor Gardner at his home. He was the third to know, and he knew my heart was set, even though I think he might have suggested NC State or Kansas State University, his words uplifted,“I know your heart is at McNeese.” That was one of his greatest talents. He knew the hearts of his students.
Stephen let me read his signed copies, including his Jim Peterson book, and his own Honor’s Thesis of poems, which I copied behind his back and knew he would tell me not to read, not to model myself after, but he was wrong. He was just as talented as anyone he pointed me too, but he had what every hotshot slick poetry MFA Student today lacks—modesty.
And that is why Stephen Gardner is my mentor and why I am now inconsolable, shaky and unable to sleep though I have reached that age where morning writing is my true time, and where even now as I write this I will soon fall into bed and weep until the world melts away.
After Months of Intense Therapy He Tries to Rebuild His Life
He wakes up each night
At 2 a.m. sweating.
Sleep is a luxury for him.
It hasn't always been this way.
Rolling in his bed
He looks out the window.
He's had the same feeling
Night after night. And before
When he bellowed Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum
Any problems in a mile radius
Seemed to disappear. So now
When he wakes,
Instead of opening his mouth,
He'll draw tight the window
And lock all the doors.
Then, with sleede ridden eyes,
He'll go outside to his garden
In the clouds, his pick and spade heavy.
With meticulous hands, he
Will set about his work,
And with practiced,
Precise skill he buries himself.
Among the weeds he searches
With focused scanning eyes
For any type of stalk
That might begin to spell trouble.
Towards 4.a.m
He starts deeper digging,
And hsi brow is now coated with
The first layer of topsoil.
He clutches at roots,
Becoming one with the earth,
His fingers still burrowing
In search of dark beans.
Later he returns to his bed
Slowly plodding the sheets, he
Melds to the mattress, ruffles
His pillow and tries to forget.
His life's been rebuilt,
So there isn't a chance
That anything or anybody
Might get him this time.
And hes' hidden his gold
Where it cannot be found.
He has bought some soft sandals
So nobody can hear him coming.
At 2 a.m. sweating.
Sleep is a luxury for him.
It hasn't always been this way.
Rolling in his bed
He looks out the window.
He's had the same feeling
Night after night. And before
When he bellowed Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum
Any problems in a mile radius
Seemed to disappear. So now
When he wakes,
Instead of opening his mouth,
He'll draw tight the window
And lock all the doors.
Then, with sleede ridden eyes,
He'll go outside to his garden
In the clouds, his pick and spade heavy.
With meticulous hands, he
Will set about his work,
And with practiced,
Precise skill he buries himself.
Among the weeds he searches
With focused scanning eyes
For any type of stalk
That might begin to spell trouble.
Towards 4.a.m
He starts deeper digging,
And hsi brow is now coated with
The first layer of topsoil.
He clutches at roots,
Becoming one with the earth,
His fingers still burrowing
In search of dark beans.
Later he returns to his bed
Slowly plodding the sheets, he
Melds to the mattress, ruffles
His pillow and tries to forget.
His life's been rebuilt,
So there isn't a chance
That anything or anybody
Might get him this time.
And hes' hidden his gold
Where it cannot be found.
He has bought some soft sandals
So nobody can hear him coming.
After Months of Intense Therapy He Tries to Rebuild His Life
He wakes up each night
At 2 a.m. sweating.
Sleep is a luxury for him.
It hasn't always been this way.
Rolling in his bed
He looks out the window.
He's had the same feeling
Night after night. And before
When he bellowed Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum
Any problems in a mile radius
Seemed to disappear. So now
When he wakes,
Instead of opening his mouth,
He'll draw tight the window
And lock all the doors.
Then, with sleede ridden eyes,
He'll go outside to his garden
In the clouds, his pick and spade heavy.
With meticulous hands, he
Will set about his work,
And with practiced,
Precise skill he buries himself.
Among the weeds he searches
With focused scanning eyes
For any type of stalk
That might begin to spell trouble.
Towards 4.a.m
He starts deeper digging,
And hsi brow is now coated with
The first layer of topsoil.
He clutches at roots,
Becoming one with the earth,
His fingers still burrowing
In search of dark beans.
Later he returns to his bed
Slowly plodding the sheets, he
Melds to the mattress, ruffles
His pillow and tries to forget.
His life's been rebuilt,
So there isn't a chance
That anything or anybody
Might get him this time.
And hes' hidden his gold
Where it cannot be found.
He has bought some soft sandals
So nobody can hear him coming.
At 2 a.m. sweating.
Sleep is a luxury for him.
It hasn't always been this way.
Rolling in his bed
He looks out the window.
He's had the same feeling
Night after night. And before
When he bellowed Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum
Any problems in a mile radius
Seemed to disappear. So now
When he wakes,
Instead of opening his mouth,
He'll draw tight the window
And lock all the doors.
Then, with sleede ridden eyes,
He'll go outside to his garden
In the clouds, his pick and spade heavy.
With meticulous hands, he
Will set about his work,
And with practiced,
Precise skill he buries himself.
Among the weeds he searches
With focused scanning eyes
For any type of stalk
That might begin to spell trouble.
Towards 4.a.m
He starts deeper digging,
And hsi brow is now coated with
The first layer of topsoil.
He clutches at roots,
Becoming one with the earth,
His fingers still burrowing
In search of dark beans.
Later he returns to his bed
Slowly plodding the sheets, he
Melds to the mattress, ruffles
His pillow and tries to forget.
His life's been rebuilt,
So there isn't a chance
That anything or anybody
Might get him this time.
And hes' hidden his gold
Where it cannot be found.
He has bought some soft sandals
So nobody can hear him coming.
Miles from Jannette
"I did not say anything"--A Farewell to Arms
Leaving Hartesfield, the plane turns north,
Two states slide under me,
And I'm still but still not calm.
On the transatlantic screen some hero
Scales a building with the same ease
I strolled across the foyer.
--Will she be there? you asked, my eyes
Growing heavy, already in Scotland.
--Will she? Through the window
I think I see nothing but water.
--Well, will she? I admit it now,
Now when there is too much light
And nowhere left to hide. I admit it
Finally, once and for all. The sky
is heavy there and gray. The hero
One-arms her around the waist,
Rappelling to the street and sweet ecape.
--Will she? Before the door can close,
I turn to say it one last time,
And then say nothing, your words
Thrown towards me before my mouth
Can move. --Will she? Heavy sky,
And gray, and rain most every day.
Miles from Jannette, and Georgia,
The plane turns east, toward Edinburgh,
where winter can be wet and cold, where
Rain on any roof is as good as love.
Leaving Hartesfield, the plane turns north,
Two states slide under me,
And I'm still but still not calm.
On the transatlantic screen some hero
Scales a building with the same ease
I strolled across the foyer.
--Will she be there? you asked, my eyes
Growing heavy, already in Scotland.
--Will she? Through the window
I think I see nothing but water.
--Well, will she? I admit it now,
Now when there is too much light
And nowhere left to hide. I admit it
Finally, once and for all. The sky
is heavy there and gray. The hero
One-arms her around the waist,
Rappelling to the street and sweet ecape.
--Will she? Before the door can close,
I turn to say it one last time,
And then say nothing, your words
Thrown towards me before my mouth
Can move. --Will she? Heavy sky,
And gray, and rain most every day.
Miles from Jannette, and Georgia,
The plane turns east, toward Edinburgh,
where winter can be wet and cold, where
Rain on any roof is as good as love.
Between Channels
Each noon, all the monks take their place in the square
where Master Po sits in the midst of a vision.
He'll teach them a story, instructing the circle,
before asking for answers from every monk's mouth.
And answers will come till the slow auburn sun
sets, signaling the end of another long day.
Meanwhile, Cane searches a new town each day,
often fighting with gunmen, their jaws hard and square.
He will count the long hours by shadows and sun
and think as he closes his eyes to envision
his master who sits drawing words from his mouth,
who warmly invites him back into the circle.
Elsewhere, an old ranch hand leads his horse in circle,
while Little Joe and Hoss head inside for the day,
Already the eldest brother has left, his mouth
much to vocal for Ben Cartright's taste. In the square
Hop Sing works, preparing a meal as his vision
of home stays clouded by a harsh western sun.
At the same time, Kimball sweats under the noon sun,
chased by a big gang that pursues to encircle
his trail. As he runs his mind fills with a vision
of monks telling stories near the end of the day.
Just then, Kimball runs stumbling into the monk's square.
Confused, he stands there, his hand to his mouth.
Gerard interrogates the monks, watching their mouths,
"Why must you seek of him, this fugitive, my son?"
Master Po asks, but then Gerard prepares to square
off against Po. Both move to duel in a circle,
as the Fugitive flees off to safety this day,
and Cane steps into Hop Sing's failing vision.
These heroes and villains remain in our vision,
their only wisdom cliches that fall from each mouth,
and their lessons stale syntax left to linger each day
as their cloned, constructed worlds close down when their sun
sets in the West, to rise in the East. The same circle
repeats and like monks we return to wait in the square.
We live with dimmed vision, under a dim sun
Where dumb words tumble from dumb mouths.
We circle the set and stare towards the blinding vacuum of the square.
where Master Po sits in the midst of a vision.
He'll teach them a story, instructing the circle,
before asking for answers from every monk's mouth.
And answers will come till the slow auburn sun
sets, signaling the end of another long day.
Meanwhile, Cane searches a new town each day,
often fighting with gunmen, their jaws hard and square.
He will count the long hours by shadows and sun
and think as he closes his eyes to envision
his master who sits drawing words from his mouth,
who warmly invites him back into the circle.
Elsewhere, an old ranch hand leads his horse in circle,
while Little Joe and Hoss head inside for the day,
Already the eldest brother has left, his mouth
much to vocal for Ben Cartright's taste. In the square
Hop Sing works, preparing a meal as his vision
of home stays clouded by a harsh western sun.
At the same time, Kimball sweats under the noon sun,
chased by a big gang that pursues to encircle
his trail. As he runs his mind fills with a vision
of monks telling stories near the end of the day.
Just then, Kimball runs stumbling into the monk's square.
Confused, he stands there, his hand to his mouth.
Gerard interrogates the monks, watching their mouths,
"Why must you seek of him, this fugitive, my son?"
Master Po asks, but then Gerard prepares to square
off against Po. Both move to duel in a circle,
as the Fugitive flees off to safety this day,
and Cane steps into Hop Sing's failing vision.
These heroes and villains remain in our vision,
their only wisdom cliches that fall from each mouth,
and their lessons stale syntax left to linger each day
as their cloned, constructed worlds close down when their sun
sets in the West, to rise in the East. The same circle
repeats and like monks we return to wait in the square.
We live with dimmed vision, under a dim sun
Where dumb words tumble from dumb mouths.
We circle the set and stare towards the blinding vacuum of the square.
Stephen Gardner (Pome #1)
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*
--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*
James Enelow (pome)
Night Writing Without You
--for Stephen Gardner
The occasional walnut
drops. And cracks.
And rolls along the tiled roof.
I think of you,
working late, writing,
and think of how the bourbon
mingled with ice,
how your dog’s hair
stood on end.
But you aren’t here now
to hold back my wailing,
and I feel the poem
inch its way along my spine.
Pictures of poets look down at me;
and the porcelain eyes
of Mexican fertility figures
look down at me,
watch and glaze over.
Somewhere there is a blooding;
somewhere someone’s spirit is leaving;
and somewhere a small life starts
the passage of its cycle.
And I am fighting the poem,
fighting to push the words through my fingers
to try and make the white space black.
It comes, winds its way, comes
through the mouths of fertility,
through the eyes of the makers,
rolling, rounding the edges, rushing
to fill the white and me,
with sleep.
--for Stephen Gardner
The occasional walnut
drops. And cracks.
And rolls along the tiled roof.
I think of you,
working late, writing,
and think of how the bourbon
mingled with ice,
how your dog’s hair
stood on end.
But you aren’t here now
to hold back my wailing,
and I feel the poem
inch its way along my spine.
Pictures of poets look down at me;
and the porcelain eyes
of Mexican fertility figures
look down at me,
watch and glaze over.
Somewhere there is a blooding;
somewhere someone’s spirit is leaving;
and somewhere a small life starts
the passage of its cycle.
And I am fighting the poem,
fighting to push the words through my fingers
to try and make the white space black.
It comes, winds its way, comes
through the mouths of fertility,
through the eyes of the makers,
rolling, rounding the edges, rushing
to fill the white and me,
with sleep.
To Tiffany Who Tried to Save my Soul in the Washateria.
To
Tiffany Who Tried to Save my Soul in the Washateria.
She asked me where I might be
if God decided to spin the world to chaos.
She preached slowly at first,
amidst the drumming dryers.
The churning stirred her onward,
her palms clutching quarters,
waiting to offer them up as communion.
As she spoke her hands,
omehow hardened from year of faith,
motioned over the piles of laundry
as if she were causing the loads to multiply.
She talked about the blood of the lamb
and how I would not be saved
but there was till time for me and my soul,
and I let her continue.
Suddenly, she snapped
a pair of trouser in the air to fold them,
then she packed her socks in tight bundles
and cast them into her basket.
Burdening her cross of laundry
she lifted her socks bunched tight
like stones to pelt the unbelievers,
her hair draped like a saint's.
How could one so lovely
be so sharpened against conversation?
I wanted to pill her bundled sock
and hold her.
I wanted to tell her of my heaven
where we read poetry
and break bread together
under life oak in February.
I wanted to tell her
of the welcoming of desire.
She asked me where I might be
if God decided to spin the world to chaos.
She preached slowly at first,
amidst the drumming dryers.
The churning stirred her onward,
her palms clutching quarters,
waiting to offer them up as communion.
As she spoke her hands,
omehow hardened from year of faith,
motioned over the piles of laundry
as if she were causing the loads to multiply.
She talked about the blood of the lamb
and how I would not be saved
but there was till time for me and my soul,
and I let her continue.
Suddenly, she snapped
a pair of trouser in the air to fold them,
then she packed her socks in tight bundles
and cast them into her basket.
Burdening her cross of laundry
she lifted her socks bunched tight
like stones to pelt the unbelievers,
her hair draped like a saint's.
How could one so lovely
be so sharpened against conversation?
I wanted to pill her bundled sock
and hold her.
I wanted to tell her of my heaven
where we read poetry
and break bread together
under life oak in February.
I wanted to tell her
of the welcoming of desire.
Pome Library #2
To My Student Who Wears God on a Chain
Keep your eyes open. The pull
Of ancient wood and nails won't do
Much longer. As the class demands
Ideas, I see your smile come
And go, your forehead clench,
Unclench, relax. Relax. How
Tired you must now be, gold
Chain catching the light; silver
Ring, my glance. Can your long hair
Hide the light for me? For you?
Coming to peace is long, and
You must know: such a hanging weight
Pulls us all head-first down.
Stephen Gardner
Keep your eyes open. The pull
Of ancient wood and nails won't do
Much longer. As the class demands
Ideas, I see your smile come
And go, your forehead clench,
Unclench, relax. Relax. How
Tired you must now be, gold
Chain catching the light; silver
Ring, my glance. Can your long hair
Hide the light for me? For you?
Coming to peace is long, and
You must know: such a hanging weight
Pulls us all head-first down.
Stephen Gardner
Video Remote and The One with the Heart of Gold
Video Remote and the One with the Heart of Gold
She reaches through his skin to muscle,
Pulling it from the bone, stretching
His shoulder into wings. He turns
To face her, eyes aglaze, stares
Into her lips, parted and wet, move
To pull her close. Click. She
Screams and slams the door, his face
Grinning into her eyes through the wood.
Click. With the music sliding to Ravel,
She takes his hands and backs him
To the bed, brushing the cannopy's net
With the back of her head, turns, eases
Herself down, slow-mo, feet on the floor,
Head on the pillow. Click. Halfway
Up the tairs, he stops, giant eyes aflame
With fear, facing the door bulging in
With his fists. Click. Lips brush her cheek;
His hands work off-screen; she takes
A deeper breath, closes her eyes. She runs
Her red nails into the small of hi back.
Click. The chainsaw roar alive and bites
Through the door. Click. Ah! She says.
Click. Scream. Click. She says yes.
Stephen Gardner
She reaches through his skin to muscle,
Pulling it from the bone, stretching
His shoulder into wings. He turns
To face her, eyes aglaze, stares
Into her lips, parted and wet, move
To pull her close. Click. She
Screams and slams the door, his face
Grinning into her eyes through the wood.
Click. With the music sliding to Ravel,
She takes his hands and backs him
To the bed, brushing the cannopy's net
With the back of her head, turns, eases
Herself down, slow-mo, feet on the floor,
Head on the pillow. Click. Halfway
Up the tairs, he stops, giant eyes aflame
With fear, facing the door bulging in
With his fists. Click. Lips brush her cheek;
His hands work off-screen; she takes
A deeper breath, closes her eyes. She runs
Her red nails into the small of hi back.
Click. The chainsaw roar alive and bites
Through the door. Click. Ah! She says.
Click. Scream. Click. She says yes.
Stephen Gardner
A Son of Stephen: Darkness into Light
Darkness into Light
Will Wright, my friend edited my original verion, making some very strong firm changes and the original title was “Rain on Any Roof."
I thank him for his watchful eye. I do think he made it better. Presented here is the full version I submitted to him, which I put through about six revisions myself.
An introduction by James Enelow
Every night, when the light retracts into darkness, and slow, shadow time begins, before I move slowly to the bed and surrender, I think of Stephen Gardner--my first mentor. In November of 2009, two days before my birthday Stephen Gardner passed away, and on my birthday, he was honored by the University of South Carolina at Aiken. At his funeral service many of his former students showed up, to spread his ashes and celebrate the man who believed in them and who made it possible for many to go to graduate school or become published. In his last years, he experienced a wealth of “spiritual” sons and daughters whose successes he nurtured and nourished even after a second divorce and at the expense of his own writing and publication record.
So much of Stephen's own work is ingrained in the world of shadow and darkness, where a lonely “narrator-would-be-writer of sorts” sits in the engulfing dark and searches for any epiphany of light. One of the first poems I wrote for Stephen, “After Months of Intense Therapy He Tries to Rebuild His Life.” was similar to many of Stephen’s works, though I have no idea if Stephen ever liked Fairytale poems.
Regardless, Stephen bolstered my work because I believe he saw something in it, whether it was the lament of an adult for a time of his childhood or the story of a broken Giant who rolled in his sleep, every night before going out to weed his garden of anything resembling a bean sprout. At twenty-two, I had slipped into Stephen Gardner’s world, and it was only after leaving his grasp, reading all of Theodore Roethke, James Dickey, and quite a bit of Dylan Thomas, that I understood Stephen’s voice.
Stephen's poetry is tethered to the shadows of the human soul, but also the actual darkness of the body, struggling with age, infirmity, or moral weakness--transcending from light to darkness and darkness into light. A reader encountering him must struggle through darkness, starved and searching until rescued out by the quiet epiphanies of middle age.
My first foray into Stephen Gardner's work was his honor's thesis, which held so many intriguing works including many male narrators unwittingly acting in sadness or in anger, lunatics searching the night for some poetic transformation through James Dicky-like union or death. Most appropriately his works contain people in search of answers through all manner of objects and rituals, from ex-wives who become stewardesses and
fly
off in planes, to men watching late night television, midnight
refrigerator raids or the almost Hemingway-like need for Keatsian
droughts of alcohol to numb the sense and induce dreams.
Gardner's search is similar to that of Dylan Thomas’s speaker in “In My Craft or Sullen Art” who struggles to painstakingly craft each line, producing sometimes little more than two or three words--that midnight poet of middle age, bereft of youth, and filled with memories of a younger, stronger and more adept body. This is how I see my first mentor. And when Stephen let me into his world, by passing me his thesis or printing for me his master poem list, I was hooked. How could I know I would come to love the twilight poet, regretting lost loves, and the temptations of his profession. In a similar vein I explored themes such as Stephen’s “To My Student who Wears God on a Chain,” in my own poem, “To Tiffany Who Tried to Save my Soul in the Washateria.” Stephen's poem, “Video Remote and the One with the Heart of Gold” is an amazing portrait of a man, sitting up, watching television and clicking anxiously between two types of films, a horror/slasher movie and something along the lines of a late night adult film on Cinemax—which humorously creates an almost James Dickey-like union of sex and violence.
Gardner’s poems specifically play with visual media, and it was easy for me to fall in love with them. And for a young poet it was impossible not to emulate him. So, I followed in his footsteps, writing my own version of his television pastiche, called, “Between Channels,” and eventually after reading "2 a.m., incense, a quart of gin, my dog with a bone" writing my own homage poem, “Night Writing Without You.” Many of my earliest poems, and perhaps (If I may say, some of my best) were poems in the vein of Stephen Gardner's works. And through Stephen would probably have stopped me from writing like him. Stephen was, for me, a real poet, greater than any bread loaf or Iowa Poetry Prize winner, similar to the fugitives, and the beats, confessional at times, but also fanciful, stretching his range to create powerful surprises, and dark, delightful themes.
There are many times I have no words for Stephen's true gift to me, which is that he allowed me to steal from him—his themes and his visions. He was, what a true teacher should be, caring yet distant, and nurturing--without overreaching.
His first gift to me was poetry, and from that, the roots of Southern poetry. Stephen's own voice was un-mistakably southern, and his concerns, uniquely Southern: love, lost love, the inner depths and degradations of men's souls, but he also wrote a series of fine poems in the voice of a woman, Eva, whose life journey mimicked his own from graduate school and home, along several cities of the Southern states until he became a distinguished chair at the University of South Carolina at Aiken. His poems tackled weighty matters of the soul: religion, obsession, sex and oblivion. Like any good poet he tackled the poem sequence, working in collaboration with Doctor Phebe Davidson, and these last works show a man come to terms with his life. His speaker, a traveling Bible salesman, writes letters home to his wife while he goes on a “spiritual” walkabout of the back roads landscape of the old South. These are the last poems I know of and they are uplifting and brave--they are transcendent to the limits of the human body and character that was Stephen Gardner. Even now, as I write the last of these words, this is how I want to remember him—the last shadows of doubt have left him, and open before all is a man who found love in what he does, not in what he never got to do. Like the speaker of a later poem, “Miles from Jannette,” inspired by Jannette Giles, another of his students, his speaker states “Rain on any roof is as good as love.” One can almost hear the statement, from him, “My students poems are as good as mine,” and that’s all that needs to be said.
Gardner's search is similar to that of Dylan Thomas’s speaker in “In My Craft or Sullen Art” who struggles to painstakingly craft each line, producing sometimes little more than two or three words--that midnight poet of middle age, bereft of youth, and filled with memories of a younger, stronger and more adept body. This is how I see my first mentor. And when Stephen let me into his world, by passing me his thesis or printing for me his master poem list, I was hooked. How could I know I would come to love the twilight poet, regretting lost loves, and the temptations of his profession. In a similar vein I explored themes such as Stephen’s “To My Student who Wears God on a Chain,” in my own poem, “To Tiffany Who Tried to Save my Soul in the Washateria.” Stephen's poem, “Video Remote and the One with the Heart of Gold” is an amazing portrait of a man, sitting up, watching television and clicking anxiously between two types of films, a horror/slasher movie and something along the lines of a late night adult film on Cinemax—which humorously creates an almost James Dickey-like union of sex and violence.
Gardner’s poems specifically play with visual media, and it was easy for me to fall in love with them. And for a young poet it was impossible not to emulate him. So, I followed in his footsteps, writing my own version of his television pastiche, called, “Between Channels,” and eventually after reading "2 a.m., incense, a quart of gin, my dog with a bone" writing my own homage poem, “Night Writing Without You.” Many of my earliest poems, and perhaps (If I may say, some of my best) were poems in the vein of Stephen Gardner's works. And through Stephen would probably have stopped me from writing like him. Stephen was, for me, a real poet, greater than any bread loaf or Iowa Poetry Prize winner, similar to the fugitives, and the beats, confessional at times, but also fanciful, stretching his range to create powerful surprises, and dark, delightful themes.
There are many times I have no words for Stephen's true gift to me, which is that he allowed me to steal from him—his themes and his visions. He was, what a true teacher should be, caring yet distant, and nurturing--without overreaching.
His first gift to me was poetry, and from that, the roots of Southern poetry. Stephen's own voice was un-mistakably southern, and his concerns, uniquely Southern: love, lost love, the inner depths and degradations of men's souls, but he also wrote a series of fine poems in the voice of a woman, Eva, whose life journey mimicked his own from graduate school and home, along several cities of the Southern states until he became a distinguished chair at the University of South Carolina at Aiken. His poems tackled weighty matters of the soul: religion, obsession, sex and oblivion. Like any good poet he tackled the poem sequence, working in collaboration with Doctor Phebe Davidson, and these last works show a man come to terms with his life. His speaker, a traveling Bible salesman, writes letters home to his wife while he goes on a “spiritual” walkabout of the back roads landscape of the old South. These are the last poems I know of and they are uplifting and brave--they are transcendent to the limits of the human body and character that was Stephen Gardner. Even now, as I write the last of these words, this is how I want to remember him—the last shadows of doubt have left him, and open before all is a man who found love in what he does, not in what he never got to do. Like the speaker of a later poem, “Miles from Jannette,” inspired by Jannette Giles, another of his students, his speaker states “Rain on any roof is as good as love.” One can almost hear the statement, from him, “My students poems are as good as mine,” and that’s all that needs to be said.
The Speaker in these poems is the Stephen Gardner, victorious and triumphant, who sacrificed his own writing for his students, so they could succeed--who saw a future in his student’s forms and bodies of work that transcended his own failing body.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
