Michael Beadle
Michael Beadle
poet • author • writer-in-residence
poet • author • writer-in-residence
Awards / Honors
Original poems chosen for art/poetry exhibition at Artspace (Raleigh, NC) Feb. - March 2025
Finalist for James Applewhite Poetry Prize (NC Literary Review, 2025) — "Vanitas"
Finalist for James Applewhite Poetry Prize (NC Literary Review, 2024) — "Practice to Embrace"
1st Place for Charlotte Writers' Association Ruth Moose Flash Fiction Contest (2021) — "General Binky"
"Best of the Net" nomination for flash fiction story, "The Ball" (published in Apple Valley Review, spring 2021)
Willie Parker Peace History Book Award winner from NC Society of Historians (2012) — Waynesville (local history book co-authored with Peter Yurko)
Children's Poetry Books...
Does Your Goblin Have a Problem?
Order online from BookBaby
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Adult Poetry Collections...
Beasts of Eden (Press 53, 2018)
Primer (Main St. Rag, 2017)
**Finalist for the 2016 Cathy Smith Bowers Chapbook Contest
Invitation (Main St. Rag, 2013)
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Local History Books...
Canton (Arcadia, 2013)
Waynesville (Arcadia, 2010)
[co-written with Peter Yurko]
Haywood County (Arcadia, 2010)
Order from Arcadia Publishing
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• Poem Samples:
What the Camel Stores in His Hump
Some say it's just a water tank
For epic desert trips.
But I think it's a travel pack
To carry bags of chips.
Or could it be for keeping cool
A wheel of cheddar cheese?
Or cherry-flavored popsicles
For when it's 100 degrees.
Why else would a roaming camel
Have such a hump on his back?
To lug around his leftovers
Or crackers for a snack.
Perhaps it's where he keeps his books
Or board games for his friends
Or maps of an oasis pool
Or postcards he can send.
Maybe there are silver coins,
Golden rings and rubies—
A hidden treasure tucked away,
The kind you find in movies.
What is that I heard you say?
His hump is a lump of fat?
It's not a cooler for hummus dip?
I can't believe the facts.
—Michael Beadle
from Foodtopia! (BookBaby, 2025)©
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Birthday Wishes
I don’t want an anaconda for my birthday.
Don’t need a chimpanzee to bring me cake.
What I’d love is a hug from a panda,
And a sky of fireflies across a lake.
— Michael Beadle
from What Makes a Giraffe Laugh? (BookBaby, 2022)©
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Bull Elk in Cataloochee
As pilgrims we come
in late summer, armed with Canons
and Nikons, drawn to the valley
once home to corn and cattle,
Palmers and Caldwells.
Thief-still, we stand watch
in a scrim of woods, waiting
for the flick of a tail, twitch of an ear,
branch of antler among burnt maple.
One by one, hoof and hide emerge
to graze in a sprawling meadow.
Chief among them steps forth,
snorts a musky breath.
For weeks he will forsake food
to herd his white-rumped harem,
ward off rivals with a single cry
that startles the air—
a long shrill note,
ancient, defiant,
a call to all things wild.
Our only reply is silence.
— Michael Beadle
from Beasts of Eden (Press 53, 2018)©
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