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About
Byron Herbert Reece
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Letters
Broadrick
Dickson - pg 1
Dickson - pg 2
Notes for Lecture in Ohio
Notes for Sermon
Photographs
Farm
Family
Bibliography
About
the BHR Digital Library
Production Notes
Other useful links:
Byron Herbert Reece Society
Young Harris College
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Faithfully, ReeceThe Byron Herbert Reece Digital Library
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Photographs from the collection of
Young Harris College
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Elbows on the Sky
If man might lean his elbows on the sky
As farmers lean their weight upon a wall
To look upon their ample fields that lie
Heavy with harvest in the yellow Fall
Then he might dicker with close-fisted fate,
Himself decide what to reject or keep
Before he comes at length beyond the gate
Where he may choose not anything but sleep.
Yet if he leaned but once upon a star
And saw his earth, and himself a fugitive,
As long as breath could keep life's door ajar
He would be happy but to breathe and live,
With little care for what he shall be when
Of death's gray waste he is a citizen.
from Ballad of the Bones and Other Poems 1945
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Byron Herbert Reece was born in the isolated mountains of North Georgia. He grew up in a rural community, steeped in the King James Bible, the ballads of his neighbors and the rhythms of the farming life. His poetry attracted the attention of fellow Appalachian writer Jesse Stuart who helped him secure a contract with Dutton. Between 1945 and 1955, Reece published four volumes of poetry and two novels. Economic success eluded him and much of his time was spent caring for his ill parents and trying to keep up with their small farm. He fought mental and physical illness until 1958, when he committed suicide.
Scholars of Reece compare him to Hemingway and Frost, and interest in his work is again growing. This digital library has been developed to give researchers further insight into the author and the surroundings that were so central to his writing. The letters and notebook in the Young Harris College Collection are fragile and their publication here is designed to help scholars understand Reece.
Updated on
November 28, 2003.
Send any comments to Debra Branson
March
This digital
library has been prepared in partial fulfillment of the requirements
of
ILS655-70 at Southern Connecticut State Univeristy.
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