Silver Medal Winner, 2016 Independent Book Publishers Association Benjamin Franklin Awards
Winner of the 2012 Robert Frost Farm Prize and the 2014 String Poet Prize
In the lyrical tradition of Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson, the finely crafted poems in Richard Meyer’s debut collection Orbital Paths are brimming with wisdom and wit. Accessible and begging to be read out loud, these poems travel from the depths of outer space to the backyards and back roads of Minnesota with mature (and often playful) insights into nature, relationships, religion, sex, death, mythology, and more.
“Meyer is a siren. Just try to put this collection down.” –Nicole Helget, author of Wonder at the Edge of the World, Stillwater, and The Summer of Ordinary Ways
“Richard Meyer’s poems are a delight to read. Their rich language and metrical music draw us in…[T]he poet’s eye moves easily from wash hanging on the clothesline to meteors screaming through space. Anchoring it all is a cosmic sense of humor. The effect is enchanting.” –John Thavis, author of the New York Times bestseller The Vatican Diaries
“[These] companionable poems begin in wisdom and end in delight.” –David Yezzi, author of Birds of the Air
“This is a seasoned debut collection that smoothly melds science, religion, and nature with wit and protean intelligence to achieve original insights and cosmic fun.” –Alexander Pepple, Editor, Able Muse poetry review
“Witty, lightly philosophical, sonically pleasurable, Richard Meyer’s poems will bring special joy to those with a taste for traditional verse.” –David M. Katz, author of Stanzas on Oz
Poems from the collection:
Blind Date{after Shakespeare}Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Mosquitoes. Rain. Vacation without pay.
October ClosingThe red and yellow tents come down,
the trapeze sky turns gray,
a lagging harlequin in brown
looks back and walks away.
CommunionThe moon’s a sacramental host,
night air the eucharistic wine
for those who can’t give up the ghost
of finding love incarnadine.
I take the moonlight on my tongue
and drink the linden-blossomed air,
remembering when I was young
and mouthed the same unanswered prayer.
Richard Meyer inspired high school English and humanities students in southern Minnesota for thirty-two years while composing poetry of his own. He lives in his family home, the house his father built, in Mankato, a city at the bend of the Minnesota River. Meyer’s poems have appeared in numerous journals and publications, including
Able Muse, Alabama Literary Review, Angle, Autumn Sky, The Classical Outlook, The Evansville Review, Light, Measure, New Verse News, The Raintown Review, String Poet, and
Think. Critically acclaimed for his poems “Fieldstone” (Robert Frost Farm Prize) and “The Autumn Way” (String Poet Prize), Meyer has also received top honors in the Great River Shakespeare Festival sonnet contest.
Orbital Paths is Richard Meyer’s first book of collected poems.
