It's likely that Frances Smith, also known as francEyE, will be known to future generations not as the talented Los Angeles poet she was--but for her relationship with Charles Bukowski, which produced their daughter, Marina. And this is unfair, since her poems were marked by truth and accessibility-to=everyone and don't deserve to be consigned to footnote status.
My memories of francEyE are mostly good ones. I loved the poetry she would contribute to readings at L.A. venues and on Scott Wannberg's Yahoogroups site Ongoing Dancers. And for a time, she was friendly to me and even let me drive her home on occasion from readings at a venue in the South Bay. All that came to an end early in 2005 when I had a confrontation with a local literary poet (someone who once said that my death "couldn't come soon enough") at that venue. francEyE was angered by this and, as a result, we pretty much avoided each other for the rest of the time she was in L.A.
After she entered the care facility in Northern California, I ordered a copy of an anthology of her work and was suprised and happy when receiving the book with her signature inside.
It's a statement that's been said before--but I, and other poets in LA/Orange County, can consider ourselves fortunate for living in her time.
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