On Easter Sunday, when so many people were thinking of the
Risen Christ, I was thinking of poets, and duct tape and extension cords. And that’s what I like about the South.
Instead of being in church this morning, I was watching a
taped program featuring Lucinda Williams.
I am fond of girls named “Lucinda” and the show was Bluegrass Underground, not because
bluegrass is in any way subversive, but because the show is taped
underground. Literally underground -- in a
cave in Tennessee.
Who thought this up?
Yes, the South is filled with much entrepreneurial spirit. It is the home of moonshine and fast cars
that deliver it, which led to NASCAR. It
is a place where you can find dinner on the side the road at more barbecue
joints than you can name. The South is a
place where a guy with a sombrero and spicy ginger ale can build an empire
“South of the Border,” in South Carolina. And it is a place where you can put
your kids through college by stringing Christmas lights and charge people to
visit that old cave on your property.
Well, I don’t know who thought up Bluegrass Underground. My
guess is a Stanford MBA who knew a producer or had a granddaddy that put him through
Stanford B-School with proceeds from folks visiting his cave. Personally, I like to think it was two guys
with some Bud Light and boom box. After
loosing battery power, one looks at the other and says:
“Hey, Bubba, if we taped two extension cords together we
could get electricity down here for the boom box. Maybe an amp.
We could set up some chairs and get people to come and sing in our cave,
like Lucinda Williams. Hell, we could
even get on the T.V.”
For many years now, my own chicken house has been powered by
a duct taped extension cord. And that’s what I like about the South.
So there was Lucinda Williams, in a cave. Now I have been a huge fan, but Williams has
always been a bit unsure of her own sound and often, to her detriment, she has
let producers lead her music. Her new CD
reminds me the cuts I’ve heard from the Hank Williams biopic featuring Tom
Hiddleston. Hiddleston is an English
actor singing Hank Williams songs the way he thinks Hank would have sung them
if he had been an English actor. When
you hear them, you think, “Is that Hank Williams?” but soon you think, well
maybe not. On her last CD, Lucinda Williams (no relation to Hank) sounds like
an actress singing on a biopic. It is
like she listed all the words used to describe her own singing style and then
tried to sing like the real Lucinda Williams.
Only, she is the real Lucinda Williams.
Today she started out impersonating herself and I almost
erased it, but I didn’t. Then she sang Pineola.
It really doesn’t matter what she sounds like when she recites those
words. I remembered that Pineola was written about poet Frank Stanford. Not a household name, even in the rarified circle
of famous poets, but a guy with a huge cult following.
I know a lot of poets. I cannot off the top of my head, name
a one of them that actually supports themselves being a poet. They work other jobs to be poets. Their ideal job is to teach poetry to other
people who will never make a living at it.
They go to graduate schools for writing, they go to workshops, they
teach workshops, they visit artist colonies, they publish in magazines, and
still, they are often insecure in their poetry.
Frank Stanford was not.
He became a poet in grade school when he won forth prize in a poetry
contest. That was all he needed to be a
poet. He was employed as a surveyor. Stanford is most often described as charismatic,
a phrase that is overused and imprecise in the world of poetry. When he died, shy of his 30th
birthday, he was married to his second wife, or maybe his third, he was living
with his mistress, and he was committed to 3 -5 other women, depending upon who
tells the story. One of those women was
Lucinda Williams. And that’s what I like
about the South.
Poets were a common sight for Lucinda Williams as most of
her life she lived with one, Miller Williams (blood relation: father). She often gave her dad her lyrics to read
over. In one song, when a boy is
abandoned by his mother, he is left with only a picture of her as a young
woman. It is according to Lucinda, "a girl
in a faded blue dress." Miller didn’t
like it. It wasn’t exact enough. She made a small change as “faded” became
“sad” and in that simple edit made the most haunting of lyrics:
He Never Got Enough Love
His mama ran off when he was just a kid,
so he never really knew her at all.
Just a picture of a girl in a sad, blue dress
hanging beside a cross on the wall.
Not only did Miller Williams encourage the poetry in his
daughter’s lyrics, he also supported other poets, including Frank Stanford and
his lover, C.D. Wright. Now philandering
with a bunch of women might possibly work in New York or Los Angeles, but
Pineola is another story. Frank’s wife, artist Ginny Stanford and C.D. Wright
sat down with each other to sift through the numerous lies it takes to juggle
so many women. They decided to confront
Frank.
On June 3, 1978, Frank Stanford sent Lucinda Williams a
bunch of flowers. She wasn’t home and Miller accepted the package for her. Ginny and C.D. picked up Frank to take him
home to talk about the untenable situation. Frank asked if they could stop by
his office first to pick something up.
The women sat in the car and waited while Frank retrieved his gun. When they got to the house, the women sat in
the living room and Frank excused himself for a minute.
Ginny Stanford would later write she heard: “Pop. Oh! Pop. Oh! Pop. Oh!”
C.D. Wright picked up the phone and called Miller
Williams.
Williams called the coroner and removed the bloody sheets. When he returned home, he found Lucinda
smiling and arranging the flowers. She
shares what happened in Pineola.
When daddy told me what happened,
I couldn’t believe what he just said.
Sonny shot himself with a 44
and they found him lyin’ on his bed.
Stanford was laid to rest in Subiaco, Arkansas. Much of the truth about his life was obfuscated
by his own tall tales and filtered through a long line of poets, priests, singers,
and artists. The body of his work, much
if it by very small presses, has been too hard to come by.
Now I’m not
saying that there aren’t great poets out there in the vast plains and cities
and tundra, but there is something especially poetic about living in places
called Pineola and Subiaco and even Sylacauga.
My friend Harry Lowe is from Opelika, Alabama. When people ask where he is from, he tells
them Opelika and secretly crosses his fingers hoping that they ask the very
predictable next question, “Where is Opelika?”
When they do, Harry Lowe smiles and says, “Opelika is between Notasulga
and Loachapoka.” And that’s what I like
about the South.
One day
Harry Lowe and I were talking about the end of one’s life. I asked him whether
or not he wanted extraordinary measures or whether he wanted me to pull the
plug. He thought for a moment and said,
“Keep me plugged in.” He thought another
minute and said, “If we can’t pay the electric bill, run an extension cord to
the neighbors.” We laughed, but I can
honestly say I never go into his neighborhood with checking to see who has a
new outdoor plug or a cracked window.
On New Years
Day, 2015, Miller Williams died.
In April of that year, Cooper Canyon Press released a
collection of Stanford’s work entitled, What About This:
Collected Poems of Frank Stanford, a volume including most of his chapbooks.
This January,
C.D. Wright died in her sleep. She was
67.
My car is
equipped with a jack, a first aid kit, a cooler, a blanket and there is always
a book. These days I keep duct tape and
an extension cord, because you never know when you might need to light up a
cave, or hook up an iron lung, or simply throw someone a lifeline.
We face everyday
with stories of bombing, shootings, hateful politicians, sick children, injured
puppies, and that’s just before breakfast.
But we still have poetry to read and music to blast in the night air. Spring is here,
the jonquils are in bloom, the lilacs are budding and in the end, the world is
pretty great place.
He is risen,
indeed.
