Georgia’s Own Byron Herbert Reece

 Georgia poet Byron Herbert Reece is almost unknown yet he was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry. He wrote his poems in the shadow of Brasstown Bald in the Appalachian mountains. His simple ballads and poems struck a cord with post- World War 11 audiences. Lauded by well- connected critics in New York and Boston, Reece enjoyed a brief walk in the literary limelight.

When Reece attended Young Harris college he lived in the “workhouse” with other students who worked on the college farm, milking cows, plowing fields, and other chores for tuition. Reece never graduated from college, unwilling to study math or French, he alternated between farming and teaching elementary school to make a living.

Reece continued to write poetry and submit them to magazines. In 1943, Kentucky writer, Jesse Stuart saw one of Reece’s poems in a magazine and marveled at its simple language of “understandable genius.” He persuaded his publisher E.P. Dutton, to publish a book of Reece’s verse. The collection was called,” Ballad of the Bones. It appeared in the fall of 1945 and propelled the farmer into the world of poetry. “It was as if our eyes were opened to something as big as the Appalachians” John Gould Fletcher wrote in a review in the New York Times. Editor Ralph McGill of the Atlanta Constitution wrote; “In Reece, Georgia has, I think, one of the really great poets of our time, and one to stand with those of any other times.

His poetry never proved profitable and Reece was often treated as an idiot savant, a quiet mountain farmer with a gift for verse. He was tall, stern, and flinty as the hardscrabble farm his family owned and worked. Except for scholarships from various colleges he was never more than a mile away from the farm. The farm was outside Blairsville, Ga., a hand hewn cabin on Wolf Creek, in the shadow of Brasstown Bald. He spent his days hoeing corn and potatoes. At night he wrote his poetry, turning his eyes to the seasons and its cycles for inspiration.

 Reece had a ramshackle writers shack in the back yard he called Mulberry Hall, not because it was grand but because it was painted a purplish red paint that a friend had given him. He furnished it with a desk, lamp, typewriter, and a cot where he wrote poetry and took catnaps throughout the night.

Sickness and hardship were never far away. Reece never married. His parents both died of tuberculosis, and while caring for them he contracted the disease. Finely on June 3, 1958, at the age of 40 he took his own life with a bullet through his diseased chest.

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