Advance praise for One Steady Glance:
“One of the greatest joys of life is spending time with art which invites you to spend time with your emotions by reflecting on someone else’s experiences. Jeff Price’s book of poetry is such a dalliance. From cars to Camelot, high school wrestling and the highest of lifeforms—the dog, Price’s One Steady Glance uses content and craft to allow readers to indulge in beautiful poetry while learning more about their own journey.”
—Russell Minatel, colleague and friend
“One might be forgiven for calling Jeff Price a warrior poet--while complimentary, it doesn’t do justice to the full weight One Steady Glance evokes in the reader’s spirit. Price’s verse is an immersion in all the sins and grace, pettiness and nobility, strength and weakness, anger and love, the sadness and gratitude, and the struggles and joys of a life, not perfect or great, but rather lived greatly in its imperfections--and through those perfect imperfections, the reader might just find the forgiveness, hope, and inspiration to find the warrior and poet within themselves.”
—Will Koella, friend and former student
About the Author
Jeff Price is now in his thirty-second year as an English teacher, twenty-three at Science Hill High School in Johnson City, Tennessee. He also taught at Abingdon High School in Abingdon, Virginia, and Jefferson County High School in Dandridge, Tennessee. He just completed thirty-eight years coaching wrestling on the high school, college, and middle school levels. His career earned him a spot in the Tennessee Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame and has included stops at Waggener High School in Louisville, Kentucky, Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City, Tennessee, Abingdon High School, Jefferson County High School, Science Hill High School, and finally Liberty Bell Middle School in Johnson City. He currently resides in Johnson City with his wife Julie, as well as a trio of cats—Merlyn, Mister, and Cleo, and his boon companion, Dewman “Buddy” Doggs, the rescue dog who rescued him.
From the Introduction
He arrived just before the sun.
That’s how I remember that first meeting. Six o’clock in the morning and still dark, emerging from his truck with Soundgarden’s “Spoon Man” blaring at full blast from his speakers, his leg slightly lifted as he played air guitar on it. This seemed to be his only dance move. I thought he was a student, some fifth year senior who had failed on purpose to anchor one more year on the football team’s offensive line. This was all but confirmed with the way the other students talked to him; laughing, joking, wrestling. But he wasn’t a student, he was some other worldly amalgamation of a teacher and a coach, built like a Sherman tank and existing to mold our minds and bodies into something worth a damn. In many ways he was the harbinger of our doom. Some final boss we had to contend with before entering adulthood.
