Fable in the Blood: The Selected Poems of Byron Herbert Reece

Decades ago, I remember speaking on the phone with a woman who was the oldest person still working at E. P. Dutton publishing company in New York City. She enthusiastically spoke of four men who she considered the most outstanding Appalachian poets - Byron Herbert Reece, Jesse Stuart, James Still and George Scarborough. All were at the height of their powers in the 1940s. All four had deep roots in traditional mountain small farms. Byron Herbert Reece (1917-1958) was born in the Chestoe Valley of Union County, Georgia, The valley's name comes from the Cherokee word for "place of dancing rabbits." It lies in the shadow of Blood Mountain and Slaughter Mountain. Reece was named after an insurance salesman and a butcher, not famous poets. The small farm where he was raised was served only by a path. There were no roads to it. It is now covered by Lake Trahlyta in Vogel State Park. He attended the Little Wild Boar Schoolhouse, the same one-room school that both his parents attended, then Ch