Navigating a Life: Henry Bloch in World War II by John Herron and Mary Ann Wynkoop explores how Henry Bloch's wartime experiences molded his character decisively, preparing him to later launch H&R Block, one of the postwar era's major entrepreneurial success stories. As a bomber navigator who defied the odds by surviving dangerous missions over some of Germany's most heavily guarded targets, Bloch learned how to face down fear. In his training before and after combat, especially at the Harvard Business School's Statistical Control Program for military personnel, Bloch further learned how to apply the newest scientific breakthroughs in decision making. Navigating a Life recounts Bloch's service in the U.S. Army Air Force's Ninety-fifth Bomb Group, but readers also glimpse Bloch's life in Kansas City and Michigan before he was called to duty and after the war. Illustrated with personal and historical images, this book shows the challenges that fliers like Bloch faced and why so many lost their lives. Navigating a Life shows how one man finds resilience amid overwhelming challenges. Henry Bloch is the co-founder and chairman emeritus of H&R Block.

Navigating a Life: Henry Bloch in World War II

Biographies & Memoirs

Herron, John

Wynkoop, Mary Ann

Leaders & Notable People

BkMk Press

Poetry. African American Studies. "Mbembe (Milton Smith) was a very fine poet, and he is greatly missed on the contemporary poetry scene. His poems were extremely wellcrafted, sharp-edged, poetic urban snapshots of any city he might find himself in. The language he employed in his poems was on-point, minimal, but always echoed the blues and jazz music that he loved. His time here was brief, but the poems he left us will last."—Quincy Troupe

Mbembe: Selected Poems

Literature & Fiction

Smith, Mbembe Milton

Poetry

Studies on Zone: Poems

Brand, Alice Glarden

The Curandero: stories

Curley, Daniel

United States

From a world traveler who is also a well-known novelist & essayist come these eight insightful essays evolved from his most recent travels. While a man might travel for sheer pleasure & experience, implicit in each experience is the potential for being physically & intellectually challenged. The focus of these essays is threefold: animal, people, & place. What impact does each have upon the other? Landscape as a catalyst stretches the body, stirs the feelings, & taps the wellsprings of memory. What meaning does each experience take on when weighed against one's personal concerns? One must learn to place particulars in a context that illuminates not only their features, but also the ways in which they may be linked. These essays allow Beasley to take companions with him on each journey. They give glimpses of what it may have been like to be there, share feelings that may have been felt at the time, impart wisdoms that may have been gleaned from the local customs. But finally, one learns that there can be no absolute answers: only stories of what happened, & what it was like to be there; only first-hand accounts delivered with clarity & affection.

Eyes Open in the Dark: 8 Essays

Science & Math

Beasley Jr., Conger

Earth Sciences

Miller Williams selected this book to receive the first John Ciardi Award for Poetry, sponsored by BkMk Press of the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Many of these poems explore newly revealed dimensions of the relationship between physical and emotional identity. The book's title, for example, is drawn from the poem "News Item: Man Receives First Hand Transplant": "Our bodies are repaired with metallic/instruments, microscopes, and catheters,/suction hoses and scalpels--/the resurrection machine." Yet the patient also imagines his new hand's "history of touches," wondering to what extent this new hand connects him to the hand's previous physical and emotional existence. This is a timely and thoughtful collection.

The Resurrection Machine: poems

Gehrke, Steve

Poetry. "Tim Skeen's John Ciardi Prize-winning collection reveals a distanced compassion so keen it might draw blood from his readers. He retells our hard histories, men and women at work in dangerous and impossible circumstances--labor wars, poverty, early death, disease, and violence--to cry out to his beloved, "How can you want children/in spite of the ossuaries of this world?" KENTUCKY SWAMI answers the question by moving in close, the poems a vibrant celebration of our continuing lives. This book is marvelous!"--Hilda Raz

Kentucky Swami: poems

Skeen, Tim

Poetry. "Dan Jaffe's celebration of jazz is so vivid and passionate I could hear the tunes and see the smoke. It was 3 a.m. and I had no thought of going home until the last note was played. This book is a great work of love" --James Tate.

Playing the Word: Jazz Poems

Jaffé, Dan

Fiction. "What virtually all the characters share is a profound sense of ironic detachment that keeps the world at a protective remove. Although Mary Troy could portray them merely as hapless losers, she wisely chooses to let us glimpse the resignation behind their struggles"—New York Times Book Review.

Eye: Poems and Retina Prints

Goldring, Elizabeth

Poetry. African American. "Along with his mentor Langston Hughes, Banks is one of the few poets who can claim a true fusion of the spoken word with the blues-music form" --John Mark Eberhart, The Kansas City Star.

Blue Beat Syncopation: Selected Poems 1977-2002

Banks, Stanley E.

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Books by BkMk Press