Dark Dove Descending and Other Parables

Book excerpt: Stephen Meats, master craftsman, presents a stunning, long-awaited collection of short fiction and poetry. His vision creates new myths for the central plains region. He moves gracefully among images and memories, surely defining human dimensions of his geography and of his times.Followers of Stephen Meats' work know to expect a passion for place-Kansas wind and sky; for family, its rewards and terrors; for the surreal in all its audacity and forays into the dark.Stephen Meats lives in Pittsburg, Kansas, with his wife, Ann, three Boston Terriers, seven cats, and six hives of bees. He has served as poetry editor of The Midwest Quarterly since 1985. Meats has published one book of poems, Looking for the Pale Eagle (1993). His poems and stories have appeared in numerous journals, including Kansas Quarterly, The Quarterly, Tampa Review, Arete: The Journal of Sport Literature, Hurakan, Flint Hills Review, Prairie Poetry, Dos Passos Review, Angel Face, and The Laughing Dog, and in the anthologies Kansas Stories (1989), Begin Again (2011), and To the Stars Through Difficulties (2012). He is currently Professor of English at Pittsburg State University