Flies on Shit

By Frank Stanford 1948–1978 Frank Stanford

To the gentlemen from the south

to the tourists from the north

who write poems about the south

to the dumb-ass students

I’d like to ask one lousy question

have you ever seen a regatta of flies

sail around a pile of shit

and then come back and picnic on the shit

just once in your life have you heard

flies on shit

because I cut my eye teeth on flies

floating in shit

Estate of Frank Stanford © C.D. Wright

Source: Smoking Grapevine (Unpublished Collection, )

Biography

Born in 1948, Stanford was a prolific poet known for his originality and ingenuity. He has been dubbed “a swamprat Rimbaud” by Lorenzo Thomas and “one of the great voices of death” by Franz Wright. He grew up in Mississippi, Tennessee, and then Arkansas, where he lived for most of his life and wrote many of his most powerful poems. He attended the University of Arkansas from 1967-9 and studied engineering while continuing to . . .

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