J. Stephen Rhodes serves as canon poet of Grace Episcopal Church Cathedral in Charleston, South Carolina. Previously, he served as pastor to three Presbyterian congregations, as academic dean and professor of theology at Memphis Theological Seminary, and as co-director of the Appalachian Ministries Educational Resource Center (AMERC) in Berea, Kentucky.
"Rhodes has crafted poems that simultaneously honor Manning's
original odes and establish a fresh vein of poetic response.
There's grit and earth in these rural psalms, and luminosity, too.
Whether contemplative or angry, the poet's voice is remarkably
intimate as it addresses the source of life--adversary, beloved,
and mystery always. Gorgeous."
--C. E. Morgan, author of The Sport of Kings
"J. Stephen Rhodes is a fearless poet who dares to write with
irony, humor, and humility about the wild, inscrutable God who is
Boss. Reading him, one catches glimpses of an actual unposed devout
life wrestling with the One who delights in our wrestling. His
images are often wry, ironic displays of human spirit that is
thoroughly enfleshed."
--Roy Howard, Presbyterian minister and book editor at the
Presbyterian Outlook
"Steve Rhodes's poetic sequence Boss begins, 'I went walking in the
marsh / Boss the one with live oaks / dead pines cypress knees, '
sweeping us into a spiritual journey that is field guide, psalter,
cry, and song. This opening poem wonders 'was that you Boss /
beneath cypress and tupelo.' In compact lines stripped to the
essential, this human voice bluntly addresses a God who is elusive,
mysterious, even bewildering, a trickster God whom the speaker
knows to be the steadiest of companions."
--Suzanne Cleary, author of Crude Angel
"The two best words to describe Steve Rhodes's poetry are fresh and
classic. His ideas are rooted in sacred tradition yet painted with
fresh insights for today's world of belief with its many
challenges. Reading him is like returning to another time and place
and then discovering you're living in the midst of today's
realities."
--J. Michael A. Wright, dean, Grace Church Cathedral, Charleston,
South Carolina
"Before I knew the poetry of J. Stephen Rhodes, I knew him as a
theologian, educator, and an accidental farmer. I know the tract of
land he owned in Kentucky. I even bush-hogged it a few times. But
even if I had not already seen it, Rhodes's poems allow me to 'see'
that landscape and others where he keeps up a running, honest,
poignant, funny, and demanding conversation with Boss. I once read
where Rowan Williams said every theologian is beginning in the
middle of things. Rhodes's Boss poems are situated in the Middle,
where an imperfect person attempts to have honest conversations
with Boss. Rhodes unveils for his readers a landscape we can all
see in order to show us the Boss who remains, as always, veiled,
while also known."
--Brian Cole, bishop, Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee
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