Mountain Singer: The Life and the Legacy of Byron Herbert Reece

Cherokee Publishing Company, 1980. Hardcover. Very Good/very good. From the front jacket flap: "From the furrows of a rocky farm in the mountains of north Georgia there began to emerge several decades ago poetry so exquisite, so perfect in its form, that it almost immediately attracted national attention. The literati - incredulous that so unlikely a background could produce ballads, sonnets, and lyrics of so high a quality - assumed that their author was a poseur who affected his simplicity and the humble circumstances of his life. Byron Herbert Reece was no poseur. He was what he seemed: first of all, a dirt farmer of modest success; after that, a poet of surpassing genius. Editor Ralph McGill said that he was "one of the really great poets of our time, and one who stands with those of any other time." In this volume a distinguished educator and writer shows how time has proved the correctness of that evaluation. He traces Reece's short life from his birth to his untimely death, highlighting the forces which exerted a profound influence upon him, and evoking the pathos of a lonely mountain man who was never completely happy in either of the two contrasting environments in which he moved. The major portion of this volume is devoted to selections of the best of Byron Herbert Reece's poetry. Its presentaiton here is a major contribution to the literature of twentieth century America." The book is in very good condition. The jacket is very good with just a little edgewear, a small closed tear topped by a small chip at the top right front corner, wear to the spine ends and corners of the jacket.