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    Blue-Tail Fly
    Blue-Tail Fly
    Blue-Tail Fly
    Ebook105 pages35 minutes

    Blue-Tail Fly

    By Vievee Francis

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    A poetic treatment of the period of American history between the beginning of the Mexican War and the end of the Civil War, by Michigan poet Vievee Francis.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWayne State University Press
    Release dateMar 21, 2006
    ISBN9780814335215
    Blue-Tail Fly
    Author

    Vievee Francis

    Vievee Francis is a well-known poet in the Detroit area whose poems have appeared in numerous journals. This is her first full-length book of poetry.

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      Book preview

      Blue-Tail Fly - Vievee Francis

      Way

      BLUE - TAIL FLY

      VIEVEE FRANCIS

      © 2006 by Wayne State University Press, Detroit, Michigan 48201. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without formal permission. Manufactured in the United States of America.

      15  14  13  12  11   7  6  5  4  3

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Francis, Vievee.

      Blue-tail fly / Vievee Francis.

      p. cm. — (Made in Michigan writers series)

      ISBN 0-8143-3323-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)

      1. African American soldiers—Poetry. 2. Mexican War, 1846–1848—Poetry.

      3. United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Poetry. I. Title. II. Series.

      PS3606.R3653B68 2006

      811’.6—dc22

      2005035890

      ISBN-13: 978-0-8143-3323-5   ISBN-10: 0-8143-3323-0

      Names of slaves and infantrymen are both fictional and/or historical compilations.

      This book is supported by the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs.

      ∞ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

      Design by Kachergis Book Design

      Typeset by Maya Rhodes

      Composed in 8.75/13 Walbaum LT

      E-book ISBN: 978-0-8143-3521-5

      This book is dedicated to

      George F. Francis III

      And not till then saw he the Other Side

      Or would accept the shade.

      Sidney Lanier

      The Dying Words of Stonewall Jackson

      Contents

      The Scale of Empire

      AFTERMATH

      1880, The Binding Tie

      The Finishing Thoughts of Festus Spencer as He Looks into the Camera

      I

      Frederick Douglass Speaks before the Anti–Mexican War Abolitionists

      Ample Cause of War

      General Taylor Convinces Himself That He Is for War

      Doubt

      Letter to the Governor of Texas

      Notes from Officer Hitchcock’s Lost Leather Journal

      Liberation

      By the end

      Three Hundred and Seventy-Two Miles from Home

      Pokagon Accepts Colonel Taylor’s Invitation

      Colonel Zachary Taylor Has Pokagon for Tea

      The Escarpment

      In Private Conversation: Buchanan to Like Minds

      The Book Speaks of Pretenders

      South of Houston

      II

      Civil Beginnings

      Darling Wife

      Grey Jebediah

      The Bone Boiler

      Shadows

      1864, Fragments of a Camp near Yorktown

      1864, A Pocket Full of Rye

      Snake Swamp

      1863, Walt Whitman Reads to the Limbless, Dying

      Linsey-Woolsey

      1864, Dear Mother

      Gettysburg: Blue and Grey

      A Singular Dispersion over Franklin, Tennessee

      Lincoln Dreams of Sarah, the Servant

      If Not for You

      1863, Detroit Riots, Again

      1864, Dear Son

      III

      Private Athens Descries

      Hannibal of Athens, Georgia

      White Glove Test

      Private Smith’s Primer

      Br’er Rabbit in Chickamauga

      Drummer Boy

      Interview: Survivor, Fort Pillow

      A Second Dream of Sarah

      Nigger Pine

      Lincoln Speaks after the Bones Are Thrown

      The White Immensities

      Notes on the Poems

      Credits and Acknowledgments

      The Scale of Empire

      Yet the most distinctive, and perhaps the most impressive, characteristic of American scenery is its wildness.

      Thomas Cole, founder, Hudson River School

      The wood that engulfs

      an empire of stone

      cares only to maintain itself,

      to green again the decadent

      progressions—discovery,

      desperation. Our delusion:

      digging into the earth

      that submits only temporarily.

      Eventually, the vine creeps across

      the well-swept patio, up the walls,

      then through, under the iron rails.

      The overwrought towers

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