Swain County Rep's First Book Forthcoming in May

Swain County NCWN-West rep Benjamin Cutler's first book, The Geese Who Might Be Gods, is forthcoming from Main Street Rag Press in May!  It's now available for pre-order at a substantial discount at  

http://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/the-geese-who-might-be-gods-benjamin-cutler/.

Ben Cutler’s first book of poems is rooted in a particular soil, or bone, of this world, the mountains and rivers of the southern Appalachians; but its branches and crowns stretch out to the hope of a post-apocalyptic tomato sandwich and back to Eden. Cutler’s imagination, like his vulture, is endlessly hungry, but it quivers, “lip-torn and breathless”, with empathy for and identification with everything it touches—bees, bats, children, god-geese whose necks write the letter S “for all their secrets.” These are quirky, accessible poems full of the music of common language.  The casual browser, in picking up this collection, need not fear being bullied or patronized—nothing too scary here, unless you count loneliness, death, the perils of love, or the end of the world.  But it is in their setting that the poet’s perilous love for the world finds its context and its meaning.  The Geese Who Might Be Gods will reward reading and re-reading with passage into a familiar world both rendered strange and seen anew, as if on “the first day’s morning—// when everything first opened / and reached for the new light.”

A Swain High English teacher as well as a poet, Ben Cutler has also been recently awarded 1st prize in TWO of the 2019 North Carolina Poetry Society Poetry Contests: The Carol Bessent Poetry of Love contest for his poem “Speak of Rivers” and the Poetry of Witness contest for his poem “The Church of Unmaking.” Everyone, please congratulate Ben!