Beasts of Eden

<p><em>Lifting each rock / we felt its weight in our palms / closed our eyes / until a name arose</em>…. Even as a child as the first poem in <em>Beasts of Eden</em> reveals Michael Beadle took upon himself the joyous burden of naming even the all-too-often unnamable things of this world.<em> </em>In this new collection Beadle lures us into a realm of fact and fantasy of history and myth where we are all—at once—both <em>native and stranger neighbor and trespasser.</em> With senses so alert to the sounds the tastes the textures the sights and smells of this world nothing escapes the fresh wit and seasoned wisdom of this big-hearted poet.<em> </em>Here is a poet who wields a magician’s pen that is both worldly and colloquial as at home in the past as it is in the present. Give yourself—and everyone you love—the gift of this beautiful new collection.<em> </em>—Cathy Smith Bowers former Poet Laureate of North Carolina and author of <em>The Collected Poems of Cathy Smith Bowers</em></p>