Many thanks to my guest today, James McWilliams. James is my first repeat guest on this podcast series, which is no coincidence. James is a good friend, as well as a terrific writer about poets and poetry. A History professor at Texas State University, James specializes in American history, of the colonial and early national period, and in the environmental history of the United States. But more apropos for the conversation today, he has spent the past 10 years researching and writing about the poet Frank Stanford. His biography of Stanford, The Life and Poetry of Frank Stanford (University of Arkansas Press) is due to be published on 7/1/25. And this is the subject of our conversation today. James is also editing Stanford’s epic poem “The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You,” which will be released in 2026.
Frank Stanford (1948-1978) was the subject of a previous episode in this series (#3 with my guest Teri Binion). Stanford is probably best known for his 15,000+ line epic poem, The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You, first published in 1978 as a 542-page book. He published many more books, though, in his relatively short life. Stanford was a complex, troubled, brilliant genius. Tom Waits and Lucinda Williams both count him among their favorite poets, which speaks volumes. He unfortunately committed suicide at age 29.
Links: https://www.txst.edu/history/people/faculty-staff/mcwilliams.html
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/frank-stanford
Theme music for Walking Inside Poems (“Girl in a Green Dress”) by Krajicek & Shafer, from the album Blue Midwestern Dream (Borderline Social Club).
The three poems we read and discuss in this episode are:
“THE BLOOD BROTHERS” (Frank Stanford)
There was Born In The Camp With Six Toes
He popped the cottonmouth’s head off
There was Baby Gage
He tied the line to his wrist
He tied the line to the alligator gar
He rode the fish
There was Ray Baby
He stole the white man’s gold tooth
He knocked it out with a two-by-four
He rode the moon blind horse
There was Charlie B. Lemon
He had four wives
And a pair of long-toed shoes
There was Mose Johnson
He threw snake-eyes in his sleep
There was BoBo Washington
A rat crawled in the bed
And sucked the blood
Out of his baby’s head
There was Jimmy
He had the knife like night
He was white
I had the hands like dragonflies
I killed one white man
He was a midget
I did it with a frog gig
It was the summer of the Chinese daughter
I danced on the levee
“INSTEAD” (Frank Stanford)
Death is a good word.
It often returns
When it is very
Dark outside and hot,
Like a fisherman
Over the limit,
Without pain, sex,
Or melancholy.
Young as I am, I
Hold light for this boat.
When the rest of you
Were being children
I became a monk
To my own listing
Imagination.
Nights and days floated
Over the whorehouse
Like webs on the lake,
A monastery
Full of noise and girls.
The moon throws knives.
The poets echo goodbye,
Towing silence too.
Near my house was an
Island, where a horse
Lathered up alone.
Oh, Abednego
He was called, dusky,
Cruel as a poem
To a black gypsy.
Sadness and whiskey
Cost more than friends.
I visit prisons,
Orphanages, joints,
Hoping I’ll see them
Again. Willows, ice,
Minnows, no money.
You’ll have to say it
Soon, you know. To your
Wife, your child, yourself.
“FLIES ON SHIT” (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
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