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Presence

Howard Stein

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​About the book
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” In this book, Howard F. Stein counts for us the myriad ways he has come to love the high desert beauty of Ghost Ranch, New Mexico. Amid the mesas, mountains, spires, and sky, over more than twenty-five years of visits (or should we say pilgrimages?), he has borne witness to its very special power, presence, and overwhelming Sense of Place.

A widely published poet, Stein now wields his razor-sharp gifts for language and imagery to paint for us an indelible picture of this unique land, and through it of our planet as a whole and our human place in it. These are the lessons of the rock, he tells us, the lessons it has been proclaiming through all of time: I am the only Earth you have. Treat me with love, and I will gift you with eternal beauty.

About the author
Howard F. Stein is an applied, psychoanalytic, medical, and organizational anthropologist, psychohistorian, organizational consultant, and poet.

He is a professor emeritus in the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, where he taught for nearly thirty-five years. He also is the author or editor of thirty-two books, including ten books or chapbooks of poetry. His most recent books of poems are Centre and Circumference (MindMend Publishing, New York: 2018) and Light and Shadow (2nd edition. Doodle and Peck Publishing, Yukon, OK. 2018). He is Poet Laureate of the High Plains Society for Applied Anthropology, whose annual retreats have brought him to Ghost Ranch for more than twenty-five years.
Praise for Presence

“Reading the intro-duction to this rich collection, I felt I was sipping water at a pristine spring in the most exquisite of deserts. The poems sustained the spell, singing the simplicity of a soul fully present to each magic moment in what is without doubt a most sacred place.”
— Dolores Brandon,
Author and Journalist
 
 
"Howard Stein is a master of his craft, one of the brightest minds of our generation; poetry is in his blood and soul. His sensitivity, thought-fulness, and images are as breathtaking and inspiring as the mesa itself.”
— Peter W. Petschauer,
Author, Poet, Editor, Professor Emeritus