Reflections of a Peacemaker: A Portrait Through Heartsongs

US: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2005. Paperback. As New. I write about anything that touches the essence of my existence. What I wit ness, what I feel, what I think, what I fear, what I treasure. I write abou t 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 gi ant. Affected by a rare and fatal neuromuscular disease, Mattie lived almos t fourteen years but in that time became a poet, best-selling author, peace activist, and a prominent voice for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Be fore his death in June 2004, his five volumes of Heartsongs poetry sold mor e than a million copies. Reflections of a Peacemaker: A Portrait Through Heartsongs is the final col lection 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 It includes the last poem Mattie penned along with a special collection of unpublished poetry, photographs, and artwork spanning the decade from when he began wri ting Heartsongs at age three.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 Ma ttie 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 group ed by theme such as playful, stormy, sacred, and final Heartsongs, with eac h 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 reques.