Kevin Riordan: Poet Stephen Dunn reads from his works at Rutgers-Camden

There's a quality in poet Stephen Dunn's voice, a seam of gentle wryness, that is instantly familiar.

As I listen to him read from his work at the Summer Writers Conference at Rutgers-Camden, it's 1973 again and I'm sitting in his poetry seminar at Syracuse University.

There are about a dozen of us in a smoky classroom in SU's ancient Hall of Languages. We all have lots of hair, as does Dunn, then in his mid-30s and to my 20-year-old eyes already a sage.

We students spend two semesters listening to his careful, caring critiques of our endlessly earnest poems. We write about sex, drugs, and rock and roll, of course, but also about Vietnam, a place none of us has been but about which we know everything. (We knew everything about everything then.)

Later I conclude that I'm destined to be a newspaperman, not a poet, though I never stop reading poetry. Dunn builds a magnificent career, teaching for more than three decades at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey and publishing 18 books. His collection Different Hours won a Pulitzer in 2001.

Thirty-seven years after those heady Syracuse seminars, I am drawn into Dunn's spell once more. On this Wednesday there are about 45 of us - mostly young people, with a few gray heads mixed in - and we're so intent you can hear us listening.

Dunn, who turns 71 Thursday, reads a dozen or so poems in 45 minutes - new and old ones, with such titles as "Poe in Margate," "If a Clown," and "The Crowd at the Gates." His work is earthy and quirky, rich with witty surprises and insights that are often blunt but more often tender.

"Sometimes a man wants/because he discovers he can have./No doubt this is why there are laws," Dunn recites from "What Men Want" from his latest collection, What Goes On.

"I only read this for my best audiences," he says before launching into "Decorum," about a poet answering critics that her poem about making love isn't sufficiently explicit.

It's a hilarious take on the power of exactly the right word, and we love it. The big art on the Stedman Gallery walls bounces our laughter back at us.

If a reading is a performance, we'd rather this show not end just yet.

The schedule of free 1 p.m. author appearances in Rutgers' Fine Arts Building continues through Friday and picks up again on Monday. That session will feature poet Mark Doty, winner of a 2008 National Book Award, and his partner, the novelist Paul Lisicky, who grew up in Cherry Hill. Tuesday, the final day, brings Mat Johnson and Patrick Rosal.

The readings "are a great way to slip some culture into the workday," says Lisa Zeidner, a novelist, poet, and screenwriter who teaches at Rutgers-Camden and is the director of the Writers Conference, now in its 24th year. They've been drawing "public school teachers, some retired people, and a lot of aspiring writers."

"It's nourishing for the soul," says Westmont resident Antoinette Meale, who has come to downtown Camden specifically for Dunn's reading. "It's such a treat."

Dunn selects another poem, "Talk to God." "Be respectful when you confess to him/you began to redefine heaven/as you discovered certain pleasures."

Then he turns to "Language: A Love Poem."

The title is perfect, but we hear Dunn say it better in "What Men Want."

"And I,/in my chosen happy torment/of words/cutting, stitching, rearranging/trying to do what it takes/to be properly heard."