Stud Fee (For The Love Of Margaret Love) Poem by MARINA GIPPS

How I knew Faulkner was very simple:
He lived right across the street from me,
The center of the town where there was an old farm,
That house became the home of a family named Elliott
and my daddy…

It was eight or ten houses in a very old town.
By then, Faulkner was older but my daddy’s business partner said,
Faulkner had won the Nobel and they couldn’t find him.
Faulkner wouldn’t answer the telephone so they called
my daddy’s business partner and he went out
to tell Faulkner he had won the Nobel.

But when I was (I forget which birthday) my daddy gave me
a fox terrier puppy and we had very fine championship studs.
And Lucky (my dog) was sent over to Faulkner’s house,
but my daddy never told me he was going to be used as a stud.
And so I was sent over to Faulkner’s to get a pick of the litter
After the puppies were born. The stable hand who groomed the puppies
called my dad—so I took a towel out of the bathroom
and rode my bike over. There was a lopsided porch on that side
so I rode my bike to the back of the sagging house. I went back there
and didn’t see anybody. Daddy said I had to pick a male because
he didn’t want a Bitch. And so I went over to the front of the house…

Faulkner was there alright…out on the porch smoking when I went to thank him.
He asked, “Which one did you get? ” I showed him.“Little girl, I can’t let you
take that one home because your Daddy agreed that I wouldn’t have to pay a stud fee…
And this dog…is the worst pick of the litter.” So we went back.
I watched Faulkner pick the dogs up, pulled them up by their tails
as he showed them to me. “This one, ” he said, “is a gem”.
That’s the dog I took and he was called George the gem.
It was a dumb dog I have to admit, but I was only six
And my apparent brightness had not shown through yet.
That was a year or so, after Faukner won the Nobel.
Wasn’t old enough to read him-still on picture books but was curious…

Besides, I didn’t know what the Nobel was. I thought that when Daddy
came home from dinner that he had won the Nobel instead of Faulkner
because Daddy was getting calls from Stockholm and all over the world
to get in touch with him. The New York Times had called, all these people:
comings and goings. And Faulkner said jaded that he wasn’t going to talk to them
just now…And I remember thinking that night—
there must be a lot to raising dogs.