In accessible, lyrical prose, Jeff Gundy takes on poetry, peace, heresy, martyr stories, music, metaphor, and more in this sequel to his award-winning Walker in the Fog: On Mennonite Writing. Is there a tradition that is at once rebellious, deeply communal, wildly individual, and truly peaceable? If we recognize and create it, Gundy insists, the answer is yes. Donald Revell, Author, Pennyweight Windows: New and Selected Poems, says that "Time was that American writing was intent upon entirety. Language was pilgrimage, and cadence kept the rhythms of a motive faith. It was a time of outrageous piety (whose upper register is poetry) and joyful critique (whose upper register is poetry)-the time of Thoreau's Week and Whitman's Specimen Days and Henry Miller's Air-Conditioned Nightmare. I am pleased to say that, in Gundy's Songs, that time is now." Jean Janzen, Author, Entering the Wild: Essays on Faith and Writing and many poetry volumes, affirms that "With his lively prose and inquiring spirit, Gundy woos us into his poetic exploration of theology, a fertile journey through the complications of belief, desire, and mystery, which leads to an open table of love, generosity, beauty, and hope. This book feeds the soul." As Gregory Wolfe, Editor, Image, observes, "Yeats once said: 'We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.' Gundy's rich, evocative book shows how Mennonite writers have made poetry out of their lover's quarrel with the Anabaptist tradition. In his graceful exposition we see how tradition and transgression are intertwined in one generative, ongoing story." And Scott Holland, in the Foreword, reports that "Reading Gundy's Songs, I smiled in delight and satisfaction at a writer whose deep soul is simultaneously Romantic, Anabaptist, and Transcendental."

As Kim Phipps, President, Messiah College, puts it, "Offering truth-filled candor and grace-filled insight, Snyder has written an engaging memoir that will speak to any individual's personal exploration and embrace of the vocational journey." How does a Mennonite farm girl, whose "closed" Oregon community prescribed a limited role for women and distrusted education, end up a university president? Journey with Lee Snyder as as she explores the surprising and unexpected paths that opened her doors to education and leadership. "As profoundly spiritual as Thomas Merton and Kathleen Norris, as wise about leadership as Margaret Wheatley and Max DePree, Snyder has created an alabaster-box memoir out of which she pours a lifetime of reading, revery, and relationship," says Shirley H. Showalter, Vice-President-Programs, Fetzer Institute. Meanwhile Ann Hostetler, Editor, A Cappella: Mennonite Voices in Poetry, believes that Snyder's "beautifully written book shows how true leadership arises from the humble ingredients of everyday life met with courage, faith, and imagination." And Karen A. Longman, Professor of Higher Education, Azusa Pacific University, celebrates that "Snyder was a pioneer for many of us as one of the first female chief academic officers. Here she combines her artistry with words and a lifetime of experiences."

The first book-length treatment of the flowering of American Mennonite writing of the last two decades, this book combines careful scholarship with Jeff Gundy's frank, sometimes sardonic, often funny, deeply engaged commentary on Mennonite writing and culture.