"For Stephan, science and poetry coexist in richly overlapping worlds whose bonds are best expressed as revelations about how we make life meaningful."

Donald J. McNutt
Editor, Blueline Magazine

"Stephan has taken me into the heart of a living thing I thought had no heart."

Christine Woodside
Editor, Appalachia

"Stephan’s superb handling of syntax creates a finely tuned and honest voice... brimful with weight and virtue."

Marc Harshman
Poet Laureate of West Virginia, Author of Woman in Red Anorak

"There is such a richness to Max's writing that reading each poem is like entering a new landscape."

Robert Penick
Author of Exit, Stage Left

"Stephan is a poet-scientist with a deep passion and a truly artful ability to dramatize how the realm of mycology 'is boundless.'"

Donald J. McNutt
Editor, Blueline Magazine

"It’s easy to read Poems for the American Brother as a single poem, an elegy with differing forms of sound and shape seamlessly united in focus and intent."

Marc Harshman
Poet Laureate of West Virginia, Author of Woman in Red Anorak

"Stephan's words connect human experiences across vast landscapes, from the Alaskan prairies to Brooklyn, from the backwoods to every person’s body."

Donald J. McNutt
Editor, Blueline Magazine