One More River to Cross: The Selected Poems of John Beecher

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Summary: Beecher's is a much needed voice
Review: For anyone who doesn't know about John Beecher, he was THE American social protest poet. (He died in 1980) His poetry is not technically complex, it's far from high art, but that's the point: it's poetry for common people about common people. His voice of protest is so heavily laden with the truth that it's impossible to ignore. In one poem in the book, he describes how standing up for the right thing isn't hard when you accept what the right thing is and don't accept anything less - in a world where money interests rule so many parts of life, Beecher's is a much needed voice.

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Summary: Follow This Voice
Review: John Beecher taught that poetry can literally save your life. It was certainly true in his own case. These poems were written by a man who, given the choice of signing a loyalty oath or being true to himself, knew what to do. Steven Ford Brown, who knows Beecher's work better than anyone else, is the perfect editor for this volume. Grab it while you can.

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Summary: JB: Poet of America from steel mills civil rights proverty
Review: My computer ate up and so vanished my thoughts on John Beecher. Let suffice: I knew him from 1978 to his death two years later. I put his name in Amazon slot to see what would come up. Except for this new book, (thank you dear Studs) I must say I have been disappointed at how little interest apparently exist in reprinting his other books--especially that interested one in 1955 a long narrative poem on abortion. Where are the researchers? He should have a biography by some clever whip smart student of social protest writers from the 1920's to the Seventies. I think it is right to say he and I were friends--said we were fellow New Englanders. I believed in him in the time of his last roar, as person-brave, writer-truthful, and I still do. Particularly today. JB lived a full life in his time--no icon he!