Why He Doesn't Sleep: The Selected Poems of Stephen Gardner collects the best poetry of an underappreciated writer, an extremely popular professor whose teaching inspired many students to become serious poets themselves. Gardner was known to invest himself in helping others more than in his own work, and so this overdue collection offers exposure to an interesting, variegated, and genuinely passionate writer.

GOING HOME

Down the road, lying with my face

Pressed into my father’s lap, the wheel

He held claiming most of the space.

But I squeezed in, bending up

My knees, with the rest of my form

On the seat and in my mother’s

Lap, not comfortable, but warm.

And they would sing together

Old songs. And I still can feel

Their soft strong hands on me again

And the cold hard turning of the wheel.