A Gathering of Kestrels (Paperback or Softback)

A GATHERING OF KESTRELS by T. D. Keane is a collection of poems inspired by the varieties of life in the Kansas prairie, specifically the Flint Hills. Mr. Keane knows the prairie well as he has been studying it for over 30 years as a Professor of Landscape Architecture at Kansas State University, Manhattan, which is on the northern edge of the Flint Hills. He has taken numerous students, semester after semester, out on the prairie to observe and study in depth the animal and plant life of the prairie and he has taught the effects of human interaction with the prairie. His poems reflect the beautiful and delicate landscape using unique and skillful poetic power. His poetic techniques fill the reader with wonder, delight, and careful sound, as one would step with respect and care into the complex world of the great plains. This collection of beautiful poems reflects the spectrum of light one will see watching the prairie, hour by hour, minute by minute, without ever seeing the same shade twice, and creating a relationship with beating heart of the grasses, the tiny insects, the coyote. Reading these poems, carefully and slowly, is a transformational experience. Each poem is a meditation that calls us to respect and love the world around us, especially, the Flint Hills prairie of Kansas.

T.D. Keane is Emeritus Professor of Landscape Architecture at Kansas State University where he taught and researched from 1984 through 2021. Keane has been writing poems for some fifty years in both traditional and "cowboy" form. Sonnets still scare him, and pentameter is something he has yet to understand, but he loves the perspective of poetry, how it plays with the perspective ofscience, and how both seem necessary for a more complete view of place.

Michael Poage was born in Virginia. He has published seventeen books of poetry, most recently, HEART: COLLECTED POEMS 1975 - 2024, Spartan Press, 2024. He served as the Poet-in-Residence at Dzemal Bijedic University in Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina, 2017-18. He lives with his wife, the writer, scholar, and activist, Dr. Gretchen Eick in Wichita, Kansas.