417 Shanks Hall, Blacksburg, VA 24061
Phone: (540) 231-6901
tom.gardner@vt.edu
Welcome
I am a Professor of English at Virginia Tech, where I have been on the faculty since 1982. I currently hold the Clifford A. Cutchins III Professorship. Most of my teaching focuses on poetry, primarily 19th and 20th Century American writers. I also regularly teach an introductory course for English majors on close reading. I've written a series of books on contemporary American poets which try to get at or enact the way writers think. In two recent books, I've combined interviews with writers and critical essays- a form that invites the reader to experience poetry from both inside and outside. Over the last several years, I've had the opportunity to write a number of plays which attempt to get at this notion of poetic thinking from yet another angle.
