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John Edward Hardy
- The University of Alabama Press
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22 / John edward hardy John edward Hardy (1922–), teacher, scholar, and poet, was born in baton rouge and received his b.A. from Louisiana state University, where he was a student of cleanth brooks and robert Penn Warren. He received an m.A. from the state University of iowa and a Ph.d. from Johns Hopkins University. He taught at the universities of detroit, yale, Oklahoma, notre dame, colorado, south Alabama , missouri–st. Louis, illinois–chicago, and munich, Germany, where he was fulbright Professor of American Literature. His books include a collection of his own poems entitled Certain Poems (1958), Man in the Modern Novel (1964), Katherine Anne Porter (1973), and The Fiction of Walker Percy (1987). source: John edward Hardy, “remembering KAP,” unpublished reminiscence, collection of darlene Harbour Unrue. the first time i met Katherine Anne Porter, i spilled a glass of icewater in her lap. it was a hot afternoon in baton rouge, probably in the late spring of 1940, toward the end of my freshman year at LsU. i was secretary of the newly organized, vaguely avant garde “literature and ideas” club, which had somehow managed to book miss Porter as distinguished guest speaker at one of our meetings. After her talk, two or three other students and i persuaded her to join us for cokes and ice cream at a popular drugstore–soda fountain just off campus on the northeast corner of Highland road and chimes street. i have forgotten the subject of miss Porter’s talk at the club meeting—and, of course, the names of the other students who were with us at the drugstore. if it had not been for the spilled icewater, perhaps i should have remembered these other things, perhaps not. but i remember that we were sitting opposite each other at a small, round, marble-topped table, and that the little glass, wet with condensation, slipped out of my hand, skidded across the table, stopped at the very edge, and, as i grabbed to retrieve it, tipped neatly, ineluctably over. fortunately, we had already been there for a half hour or longer before the disaster . And once past the initial shock—having first stood up to dab ineffectu- Part 3. europe, texas, and Louisiana / 99 ally at her skirt, and then sat down to join the rest of us in something resembling a moment of silent prayer—she managed to escape the scene with her wits about her, and her dignity remarkably intact. As casually as if it had been so far no more than a routinely stressful day on her crowded calendar, she explained that she had a dinner engagement that evening, and would like some time to herself meanwhile , “to rest and change,” before going out again. if the episode only enhanced my admiration for her, by the same token it did nothing to improve my self-esteem: which for any reasonably sensitive college freshman, of course, hardly sure most of the time that he has a self, is fragile at best. but our second and last meeting—at the Johns Hopkins faculty club, on Armistice day, 1953, the place and date confirmed in my inscribed copy of The Days Before—went a lot better for both of us. she was there for a reading, with a reception and dinner in her honor, principally sponsored as i recall by the university’s Writing seminars: a program directed at that time, as all the world knows, by elliott coleman.52 i had a chance to identify myself to miss Porter, and sit down beside her to talk undisturbed for a few minutes, before most of the other guests arrived. she wondered how long it had been since we last saw each other; expressed surprise, when i told her, that it was only once, and quite so many years in the past, considering all the friends we had in common, etc.; and finally, as i had steeled myself to expect, asked apologetically that i remind her what the occasion of our first meeting had been. so, i told her all that too, and asked in my turn whether she remembered it now. “remember it? Of course, i remember the icewater,” she said. “How could i ever forget it? but . . . . . so that was you!” And she burst out laughing, and so then did i, and there we most hilariously were when elliott came charging up, in belated hostly high spirits, saying that he had looked forward to introducing us but was...