Lucky are the readers who get to experience the delights of another fine poetry collection by Bill Meissner. His fresh and imaginative poems wed narrative to a personal lyric voice, offering stories with glorious images and metaphors, as when an ocean wave "bows down and becomes / a wing of bright diamonds . . ." Meissner's generous vision takes in the mundane and the otherworldly, the tame and the madcap, writing not only about the labor of fathers, black ice on a rural road, and the pleasures of baseball, but also about carnivals, Barbie dolls, public figures, and champions of strange world records. Watch for interesting recurrences in this body of work, such as tributes to language itself, and to those people and experiences that drew the poet deeper into learning the right words and how to put them together to celebrate, chortle, grieve, exorcize, and express longing and love. In one of the poems, a permanent scar made by a pencil stab reminds us that "Words enter you when you least expect them, at that moment / when you're trying to catch something that's falling." We're grateful Meissner is a nimble catcher who paid close attention to life and language and who used his considerable talents to write these poems.

--Margaret Hasse, author of Between Us, Winner of the Midwest Book Award for Poetry

With a passion for narrative, Bill Meissner creates poems that, with the eye of a novelist and the ear of a poet, reveal a world of intricate relationships. A map-maker sees his wife in the cities and roads he delineates; while spinning out on the ice, a man reaches for his wife's hand and clasps it so tightly that "we memorize each other's fingerprints." We find Marilyn Monroe's ghost speaking out of a mirror, and teenage daughters straining to break free of stifling limitations. Each poem fleshes out longing, its many gradations and flavors, and it is soul-work at its best. The ending of the "Mapmaker and His Woman" hints at the essence of this fine collection: "Two people standing on uncharted ground, /staring at each other, their eyes understanding/that they are the shortest distance between two points."

--John Minczeski, author of A Letter to Serafin and Circle Routes.

The quiet intensity, and clear-eyed vision of The Mapmaker's Dream is evident not only in every poem, but in virtually every line. I marvel at Bill Meissner's technical finesse, as I do the heart and range of emotions that drives and graces this compelling and memorable new collection. There is no missing that he is an original and hugely talented writer.

--Jack Driscoll, author of four books of poetry and The Goat Fish and the Lover's Knot