University of Pittsburgh Press 1996
Scars
The author of this collection is an established figure in contemporary American poetry. Here, he uses a variety of subjects as the foundation of his poems, including acorns, coffee and Tolstoy, which allow entry to an interior world where feelings and moralities can grow.
Ted Kooser:
These poems get hold of us by the coat lapels and when they release us we are delighted, shaken, and considerably wiser.
Alicia Suskin Ostriker:
Peter Meinke writes, it is clear, beneath a banner of wisdom. His gift in this book is graciously to record the scars inflicted on the body and sould by family life, aging, love and music and joy, the helplessness in this violent world of one who wants 'nothing but peace' yet feels 'my hair come to attention; when the military band marches by. I wish I had written 'The Parade,' 'Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind' (a funny and sad sestina) and many other poems in this book. They say truth, and they say it with rue, shapeliness, a wonderful band on the keyboard of metaphor.