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Worth the Wait | Poet Richard Betz
Written By: Deena Bouknight | Issue: 2021/09 – September
For poet Richard Betz, a lifetime of observations and silent reveries has found expression in his first book, Bells in the Night. You’ll find copies at Shakespeare &å Company, 204 North 4th Street in Highlands.
Richard Betz
Local poet Richard Betz recently published his first book, Bells in the Night, at the age of 72. The book has been praised by local author and retired professor of English and comparative literature Ran Shaffner, as well as by Thomas Rain Crowe, author of Zoro’s Field: My Life in the Appalachian Woods.
“Betz has waited all this time for his first book of poems,” Crowe said. “And for us readers, it’s worth the wait.”
Most people know Betz from his career in public service as Highlands’ Town Planner and Town Administrator, or from his second career in real estate with Country Club Properties, where he worked several years with his wife, Martha. Or, they know Betz as an avid runner. However, few locals knew Betz was a bard.
He graduated with honors from Rollins College with a bachelor of arts degree in English literature. Although he always enjoyed writing poetry, he explained that a time-consuming career and raising a family prevented him from spending as much time as he would have liked writing poetry. “When I retired, I entered some poetry contests and had some modest success,” he explained. In fact, his poems have been published in the North Carolina Literary Review (NCLR), and he is a six-time finalist in the James Applewhite Poetry Prize.
“For me, poetry is many things: a way of celebrating the joys and the beauty of the natural world around us, of seeing more clearly, and of seeking a deeper understanding.”
Crowe praised Betz’s skill and Bells in the Night: “These poems reflect the humble inner and outer lives of the author in poetic detail and profound musings.”
In the book’s forward, Shaffner wrote, “His poems ring with the clink of cowbells, the clang of a hemlock branch on a metal roof, tick-tock crickets, the soft fall of a poplar petal into a cobweb, the rasping and screeching of iron on iron, the whispering water of fallen mountains, and the siren song of gravity.”
Bells in the Night is available online and at Shakespeare and Company, located in Highlands.
