Blue-Tail Fly

Vievee Francis

Publication Year: 2006

The title of Blue-Tail Fly comes from an antebellum song commonly known as “Jimmy Crack Corn.” The blue-tail fly is a supposedly insignificant creature that bites the horse that bucks and kills the master. In this collection, poet Vievee Francis gives voice to “outsiders”-from soldiers and common folk to leading political figures-who play the role of the blue-tail fly in the period of American history between the Mexican American War and the Civil War. Through a diverse range of styles, characters, and emotions, Francis's poems consider the demands of war, protest and resistance to it, and the cross-cultural exchanges of wartime. More than a narrowly themed text, Blue-Tail Fly is a book of balances, weighing the give-and-take of people and cultures in the arena of war. For lovers of poetry and those interested in American history, Blue-Tail Fly will illustrate the complexities of the American past and future.

Published by: Wayne State University Press

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Cover

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The Scale of Empire

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pp. 1-2

AFTERMATH

1880, The Binding Tie

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pp. 5-11

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

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pp. 12-

I

II

Civil Beginnings

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pp. 35-

Darling Wife

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pp. 36-

Grey Jebediah

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pp. 37-

The Bone Boiler

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pp. 38-39

Shadows

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pp. 40-

1864, Fragments of a Camp near Yorktown

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pp. 41-

1864, A Pocket Full of Rye

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pp. 42-

Snake Swamp

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pp. 43-

1863, Walt Whitman Reads to the Limbless, Dying

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pp. 44-

Linsey-Woolsey

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pp. 45-

1864, Dear Mother

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pp. 46-

Gettysburg: Blue and Grey

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pp. 47-48

A Singular Dispersion over Franklin, Tennessee

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pp. 49-50

Lincoln Dreams of Sarah, the Servant

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pp. 51-

“If Not for You”

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pp. 52-

1863, Detroit Riots, Again

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pp. 53-54

1864, Dear Son

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pp. 55-

III

Private Athens Descries

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pp. 59-

Hannibal of Athens, Georgia

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pp. 60-

White Glove Test

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pp. 61-

Private Smith’s Primer

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pp. 62-

Br’er Rabbit in Chickamauga

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pp. 63-

Drummer Boy

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pp. 64-

Interview: Survivor, Fort Pillow

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pp. 65-

A Second Dream of Sarah

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pp. 66-

Nigger Pine

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pp. 67-

Lincoln Speaks after the Bones Are Thrown

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pp. 68-

The White Immensities

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pp. 69-74

Notes on the Poems

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pp. 75-

Credits and Acknowledgments

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pp. 77-

My husband, poet Matthew S. Olzmann, ever my rock without whom I could not have started or finished the book; my wonderful mother, Elaine Francis, whose generosity is boundless; first reader, poet Robert Fanning, whose knowledge inspires all who work with him; poet Paula Roper for her advice and help; the Advanced Writing Class (Springfed Arts), especially my instructor Mary Jo Firth...

E-ISBN-13: 9780814335215
Print-ISBN-13: 9780814333235

Page Count: 88
Publication Year: 2006

Series Title: Made in Michigan Writers

Blue-Tail Fly

Cover

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