Page 34 - Blairsville NCG 2023

FARM REOPENS Wednesday-Saturday: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. 8552 Gainesville Hwy., Blairsville, GA 30512 | reecefarm.org | (706) 745-2034
APRIL 12, 2023 Free Admission; Partially Accessible; Visitor Center & Gift Shop @ByronHerbertReeceFarmHeritageCenter

“His peers at the time couldn’t believe with Mulberry Hall, his writing studio.
that the wonderful writings came The Reece Gallery and Theater displays
from a man from the North Georgia photographs, books, and copies of his I Know a Valley
mountains,” added Hernden. Reece writings. Visitors bring picnics to the
was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and farm and enjoy gathering in serene areas Green with Corn BYRON HERBERT REECE FARM
earned two Guggenheim awards for with picnic tables. Make sure to view
fiction. He is the author of two novels, and listen to the award-winning video, I know a valley green with corn
and four books of poetry on the themes “Voices … Finding Byron Herbert Reece.” Where Nottley’s waters roil and run
of agriculture and nature, loss, love, From the deep hills where first at morn
and religion. Hernden mentioned the Reece Farm is It takes the color of the sun.
great for all ages, with or without kids.
Plan your visit to coincide with live And bears it burning through the shade
music at the Reece Farm. Throughout the Of birch and willow till its tide
year, the Reece Farm can be rented for Pours like a pulse, and never stayed,
family reunions, weddings, graduations, Dark where the Gulf’s edge reaches wide.
and other special events. The Creekside There, while the twilight spends its dream
Deck is an inspiring destination for Of light and shadow both, the whir
exchanging vows and The Betty Sellers Of bats and cry of doves will seem
Memorial Amphitheater is ideal for A very liveness of the air.
smaller ceremonies. About a house the ivy’s foot

What if social media had elevated Reece Creeps slowly up to hide the eaves
as an international icon of Appalachia And wreathe the chimney, dark with soot,
back in the day? His posthumous allure Into a colonnade of leaves.
is larger than real life as we celebrate the And one will loiter in the yard
poems and writings he penned that give Soft shadowed by the last of day
us a window into his era. As if she waited for a word
The Reece Center is widely appealing, From lips three thousand miles away.
explained Hernden. “The English That yearn to speak against her hair
teachers love what he wrote. The But, dumb behind the palm of space
He served as writer-in-residence at Young agriculture teachers love how it is Tauten to trembling, while there
Harris College in Towns County, Emory explained how chickens were raised on Darkness obliterates her face.
University in Atlanta, and University the farm and the uses of each animal. – Byron Herbert Reece,
of California at Los Angeles. Reece was Everything had a purpose.” A Song of Joy and Other Poems, c. 1952
inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall His gifts live on and continue to draw
of Fame in 2001. new and returning visitors, season by Reese wrote this poem during his
Exhibit features include a Poetry Trail season. Self-guided tour brochures can Guggenheim poet-in-residency at UC
Garden that highlights Reece’s poems be downloaded online and picked up in Los Angeles “three thousand miles
representing the four seasons along the visitor center. away” from his beloved valley.

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