University of Pittsburgh Press 1991

The Piano Tuner

Night Watch on the Chesapeake

Underneath the Lantern

Trying to Surprise God

Scars

The Shape of Poetry: A Practical Guide to Writing Poetry

Zinc Fingers: Poems A to Z

The Contracted World: New and More Selected Poems

Unheard Music

Peter Meinke was a master of traditional poetic forms long before the current interest in 'the new formalism.' His work is, in turn, witty, comic, sane, deeply moving, and always readable. Liquid Paper collects the best of his previously published poems from the later 1960's on with a generous selection of new work.

Poetry:

The threats beneath attractive surfaces and the uncertain security of the outwardly contented are topics rarely treated in poems as healthy as Meinke's; his voice is knowledgeable and reassuring.

Judith Hemschmeyer:

Meinke is a skilled craftsman. He is especially adept at building to a strong ending or the ending that shies the poem into an unexpected, but perfect place. He also has the most endearing sense of humopr, the ability to laugh at himself.

The Nashville Tennessean:

Like Whitman, who claimed that the smallest sprout of grass 'Shows there is really no death,' Meinke is at heart a celebrator of a vital and joyous existence.

The St. Petersburg Times:

If you are one of the millions who is bored, perplexed or overawed by contemporary poetry, do the muse, and yourself, a favor: Buy and read Peter Meinke's new book.