TIME OUT by Tom Meschery

On a recent visit to Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery, I came across the tombstone of a Vietnam War vet inscribed with these words: Heaven lies between the foul lines. Tom Meschery, in his much anticipated new book, Time Out, knows this to be true, but he also knows that to reflect upon , remember, and reimagine deeply lived experience means that one must also venture outside of fair territory. In the world of Meschery’s works, one is always aware of his presence, his generous heart, his profound and acute intelligence. These are poems that ask us to consider – at what cost do we find dignity, purpose, and peace? But put aside any assumptions of self-conscious gravity – these poems address their subjects with frontal candor and an occasional good dose of humor. Indeed, Meschery turns the “mundane into a negligee” and takes us on a journey past “undiscovered/planets, their moons and suns/and the dar matter/of our lives.”

–Gailmarie Pahmeier, Reno Poet Laureate, Emerita, Author of The Rural Lives of Nice Girls

Few writers, maybe Tom Meschery is the only one, can appreciate and consider items as varied as a move to the hoop by forward Kevin Durant or a move to metaphor by 19^th century poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. Meschery’s gift is that his poems demonstrate that sport, literature, politics, physics, are not disparate topics, but all part of life that he enacts with grace and wisdom.

–Gary Short, Author of: Theory of Twilight and Flying Over Sonny Liston, which won the Western States Book Award.