Cynthia Gustavson, poet, writer, Tulsa, Oklahoma

I have never dog-eared a book as much as I have this one. Every piece is memorable. I love it. [Puckett's] ideas are wonderful. His metaphors and extended metaphors are fresh. I seldom read religious poetry because it have been said a hunder or a thousand times before, but Gary's is fresh and unpredictable.

Herbert Brokering, ELCA pastor, poet, hymnwriter, seminary professor in Trinity Seminary Review, Vol 24 #2 Summer/Fall 2003

Gary Puckett, a preacher of all trades, keeps his eye on life in family, parish and world as he plays in prose and poetry with what it means to be human in the holy kingdom of God. His spirit speaks sometimes sharply, sometimes laboring through ninety six life themes...

How does one read these inner journeys to the Township of Heaven? Slowly. Alone with soft music. In a conference of clergy for reflection and talk. Some can be a devotional series. Some sing if you can make music. Small groups can read and tell their own poems and stories the readings call to mind. Eventually the reader creates her or his own Township of Heaven...

Some should be read several times. I read once, again. Slowly there appears the thought I wishe I had written, and I am satisfied....

On Living in the Township of Heaven is a pastor's voice. Not always the voice said aloud, but often felt, repented, enjoyed, sung. Some pages read like Proverbs, some like Mark Twain, others are parables, some Lamentations. Though said by a young man they are words sounding often like one of wit, wisdom, warning, wonder. Some are tongue in cheek, some grimace. Each page has truth. Main characters are in the family. When you think you've heard the word, there's one more sound inside.

Tim van Schmidt, Poet, writer, member of TVS and Two Fingers Poetry/Performance Group

The book resonates with a deeply personal sincerity rooted firmly in spiritual, emotional and social experiences. The poems come from the day to day life of a pastor moving from job to job in America's heartland. Puckett uses each moment, each vignette for a springboard into a discussion of life values that yields the assuance that there are still individuals left who care. Better yet, there are poets like Puckette who are willing to share. As he says in his poem, "New Church," "ita takes an artist/ to help fish perceive the water."

Rev. Stephanie Kopsch, M. Div., parish pastor, Fort Collins, Colorado

[Gary's] writings are powerful, profound and with attention to detail and language--a treat.

Rev. Gilson Waldkoenig, Ph.D., Assoc. Professor of Church in Society, Director of Town and Country Church Institute, Gettysburg Theological Seminary, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

It is refreshing to hear the inner voice of pastoral experience released through Gary Puckett's lilting verse. Too often the true voices of pastors are muffled by normalized speech, conventionalized responses and canonical language. The songs of their souls catch in their throats as they negotiate intricate relationships with congregations, peers and traditions. Puckett does not avoid the tough realities in the plodding day-to-day life of local places and unsung pastorates. Here is honesty about the stress and fears alongside the hopes of everyday faith and church life. However, as one probes the paradoxes with Puckett, one also becomes party to the publicly significant voice that arises from the personal struggle of pastor and people, and to the redemptive cadence that congregations carry for a cacaphonous world.

Rev. Mark Miller, C.PP.S, Provincial, Society of the Precious Blood, Kansas City Province

Jesus spoke in parables, using the imagery of fishing, sheep-herding, and farming to explain the mysteries of the Reign of God. Gary Puckett, in On Living in the Township of Heaven, uses the imagery of parenting, keen observation of the life around us, the connections in the eco-system of life, to explain and open us to the mysteries of God. The parables of Jesus and the poetry of Gary both excite the imagination to bring understanding and insight to a deeper level.

Rev. Edward Kail, Chair of Town and Country Ministries, St. Paul School of Theology, Kansas City, Missouri

In his collection On Living in the Township of Heaven, Gary Puckett displays his artistry in reflecting upon both the lived realties of his family and community and the great themes and images of Christian tradition. He weaves together his love for his parishioners and their neighbors, his care for his daughter and spouse, and his regard for the land and what it has to teach. While he evidences understanding of rural communities and people, his writing would be equally understandable to any urban or suburban dweller who really notices where he or she is, particularly if they have a garden or yard to tend. I commend these poems to those who will read slowly and thoughtfully, and ponder where they are in God's good creation.

Jim Babcock, High School English teacher, rural Kansas

Gary travels from the truly aswesome responsibility of making healthy parental decisions to valuable insights of a child to the broader, democratic metaphor of the life-long struggles of loving others and trying to understand things (in other words: seeking grace.)

These poems are about the most serious and important aspects of the human condition, yet the author never takes his eyes off of the playfulness and humor that permeate this quest for humanness.

"It has been a good cocoon/The parish has been this writer's playpen/Freeing me with its safe boundaries/Encouraging me with its low expectations/Rewarding me with its sense of surprise//yet I am restless//I am a kept poet..."

I started laughting aloud while watching my grandsons swim in the pond, and they wanted to know why I was laughing at poetry! I couldn't explain, but it is phrases like these in bold that makes his poems live. I think it was the 13th century mystic poet Rumi who said, "It may be that God is the impulse to laugh, and we are all the different kinds of laughter."

I admire and respect the author's forthrightness in his self-proclaimed Christian point-of-view. At the same time within this orientation he reveals a very Zen-like perception of the phsical and spiritual worlds which helps create a beautiful and intriguing literary tension:

"My mother-in-law taught us when/and how to pick dandelion greens for salads,/and then would spend much of her time/ in the spring and summer/poisoning dandelions in her yard."

Here is someone with whom I share much. Time and time again I saw, reflected through the eyes of Gary, my struggle with seeking grace and the journey toward my human potential. There are no simply "one size fits all" answers on questions such as the one suggested in the final verse of Friction,

"We need each other/So we need to work together/more than the work needs to get done/and if we focus merely on the jobs/we will never recall/why we do them/and eventually we won't".

Rev. Jeff Lilley, parish pastor in Kansas

I have read these poems several times over the last year or so. Township is a work that explores the "underside" of ministry... and the task of ministry with eyes that see into the meaning of ministry rather than the act of ministry. Through poetry and prose he explores how ministry is life: life-giving and life-rending all at the same time.

Ellen Morseth, Staff Mentor, WORSHIPFUL-WORK: Center for Transforming Religious Leadership

I was delighted....His writing seems to come from a real home-body, someone who delights in ordinary, everyday encounters adn theologizes about them in some poignant and often humorous ways. Particular favorites of mine are Seneca Falls, Salt, February 12, 1990, and No.

Pr. Ken Longfield, Evangelical Lutheran Church, Reedsville, Pennsylvania

Gary really speaks to the pastor in those poems. I plan to recommend it to my colleagues.

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