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Reflections of a Peacemaker A Portrait Through Heartsongs

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  • Publisher:
    Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2010
    Note: This book was purchased with support from the Government of Canada's Social Development Partnerships Program - Disability Component.

Details:

  • Contributor: Stepanek, Jennifer Smith
    Date:
    Created
    2010
    Summary:

    "I write about anything that touches the essence of my existence. What I witness, what I feel, what I think, what I fear, what I treasure. I write about life, which is our greatest gift." —Mattie Stepanek, 1990-2004

    Mattie J. T. Stepanek lived and died a child, but he had the spirit of a giant. Affected by a rare and fatal neuromuscular disease, Mattie lived almost 14 years but in that time became a poet, best-selling author, peace activist, and a prominent voice for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Before his death in June 2004, his five volumes of Heartsongs poetry sold more than a million copies. Reflections of a Peacemaker: A Portrait Through Heartsongs is the final collection of Heartsongs that Mattie was working on when he died. It includes the last poem Mattie penned, along with a special collection of unpublished poetry, photographs and artwork spanning the decade from when he began writing Heartsongs at age three. Culled from the thousands of poems, essays and journal entries Mattie left behind, the entries in Reflections of a Peacemaker create a portrait of Mattie in his own words. In these poems he explores disability, despair, and death but also the gifts he finds in nature, prayer, peace and his belief in something "bigger and better than the here and now." The poems are grouped by theme such as playful, stormy, sacred and final Heartsongs, with each section introduced by a personal tribute from the likes of Maya Angelou, Oprah Winfrey, Larry King and former President Jimmy Carter. In the words of Mattie's mother Jeni Stepanek, who has published Reflections of a Peacemaker at her son's request, "In reading these poems we enter Mattie's world and gain insight through a child who somehow balanced pain and fear with optimism and faith."

    Original Publisher: Kansas City, Andrews McMeel Publishing
    Language(s): English
    ISBN: 9780740799402