Whatever his subject -- blackberry winters, night winds of DaNang -- Rhodes treats the word as a sacred thing. Behind the staggering doubt, beyond his quest for the holy, Rhodes writes with an acute, desperate longing for redemption, for grace. And, always, his poems bear witness to an unseen world, beyond the beauty and atrocity found in our everyday existence.

-- Nancy Tupper Ling, author of Laughter in My Tent and
2005 grand-prize winner of the Annual Writer's Digest National Writing Competition
www.finelinepoets.com

Steve Rhodes writes from the center of himself. His writing voice merges elements of desert father and hootenanny singer, Smoky mountain hiker and contra dancer, lover of life and lifelong pastor into poetry and prose that speaks from and through his whole being. In poems not afraid to make light of the serious questions or to find the weighted center of the most ephemeral of instants, Steve Rhodes brings us to moments of revelation and renewal. In his essays, he tackles the losses and shadow side of family life, even as he celebrates the wisdom of laughter and song, the great dance of joyous being. To read Steve Rhodes is to be taken deeply into our own questioning and brought surely to moments of joy.

-- Leatha Kendrick, editor, teacher, and author of
Heart Cake and Science in Your Own Back Yard
www.leathakendrick.com