RECOVERING MY SANITY

About the Book

This trade paperback of just over 105 pages is packed with over 30 award-winning poems and three spine-tingling horror-suspense stories by Memphis attorney Beecher Smith, among whose clients was the late Elvis Presley. Smith´s poetry runs the gamut between humor and pathos with some bittersweet love poems in between. His love-hate relationship with Boston terriers is manifested in his near-epic poem "Grandpa Frank and his Bostons," as well as several others, including "To Lady," which will touch the heart of any true dog lover. His horror stories depict a dark and sinister Memphis. The last one, "Return of the King," involves a deceased mega-celebrity who returns as a vampire to waste his wicked step-mother for selling vile rumors to the tabloids. It ends with the immortal phrase, "You shouldn´t have said BAD THINGS about my Momma!"

About the Author

Beecher Smith lives in Memphis, Tennessee with his family, including a Boston Terrier.  He was an honor student at Millsaps College, where he majored in English literature before graduating and going to the University of Tennessee to earn his law degree.   He distinguished himself in the practice of law as Elvis Presley's personal attorney, probated the late entertainer's will, and chartered Elvis Presley Enterprises.  He rezoned Graceland to become a world-class museum and continues to be of counsel to the Presley family.  After a near-fatal hunting accident in 1986, he returned to writing poetry and fiction, for which he has received numerous awards.  The Poetry Society of Tennessee elected him its Poet Laureate in 1995.  That same year he was also inducted as a fellow Laureate Man of Letters by the United Poets Laureate International and the World Congress of Poets.  His identical twin Vassar Smith lives in Palo Alto, California and also writes and publishes poetry.

 Subsequent to the release of Recovering My Sanity, the title poem was selected for inclusion in Carvings in Stone (Iliad Press, 1996), and is a semi-finalist in the National Library of Poetrys 1995 North American Open Poetry Contest.