Irene Hoge Smith
The Good Poetic Mother
Washington, D.C.
January 30, 1963
Frances Dean Smith
Somewhere in California
RE: Clarification of your intentions
Dear Mrs Smith Mama,
I am writing to ascertain your plans regarding your position here in Washington, where my three sisters and I have been posted, in our father’s establishment, since the end of last year. Your unannounced departure, which gave us no opportunity for an exit interview, has resulted in some confusion about your future availability. While your appointment remains open (no immediate prospect of a replacement being in view), it would be helpful to know when we might expect to see you again. If ever.
Sincerely,
Irene (Daughter #2)
Washington, D.C.
March 1, 1963
Frances Dean Smith c/o Ida Mae Dean
Garden Grove, CA
RE: Proposed Disability Accommodations
Dear Mrs Smith Mama,
While awaiting your reply to my previous letter, I have been giving some thought to the question of whether or not your assignment here has ever been one you were in fact wholly able to fulfil. While your abilities and commitment regarding the practice of poetry are exceptional, those having to do with household management and the care of children are, it must be acknowledged, less developed. At the same time, it is obviously unfair that you should be subject to job discrimination on the basis of those specific disabilities. I propose, therefore, that we consider the possibility of reasonable workplace accommodations that might make it possible for you to resume your career here. It seems probable that such adjustments might be made without posing any (further) undue hardship on the rest of the staff.
As you may recall, I am fourteen and Daughter #1 is sixteen—we can of course continue to take care of ourselves. We are currently providing most if not all of what the little girls (eight and five) need. Furthermore, although our father remains for the most part an off-site manager, he has retained a part-time housekeeper, which might obviate the need for you to perform any organizing or cleaning duties. (And, of course, a one-bedroom apartment is much easier to look after than the four-bedroom house we left behind in Ann Arbor.)
Please consider this proposal, and let me know if you think we might come to an arrangement that would facilitate your return.
Sincerely,
Irene (Daughter #2)
P.S. I note that you have a new situation, on what I assume is a temporary basis, in your own mother’s establishment. While I must confess some doubt as to whether this association will prove a better fit than it has been in the past, I do send my best regards to Grandma Dean.
Washington, D.C.
May 25, 1963
Frances Dean Smith
Los Angeles, CA
RE: Retraction of accommodations offer
Dear Mrs Smith,
It has now been almost five months since your departure and the removal of myself and my three sisters from our former home in Ann Arbor to our father’s D.C. apartment. As perhaps you have been informed, Daughter #1 has, like you, left her position here without notice. Although she is not quite seventeen, she did not provide a forwarding address and is not expected to return. Thus, our establishment consists at this point of the little ones (Daughters #3 and #4), myself, and our father. Since he sleeps at his girlfriend’s place when he is not away on business, there is adequate room for our limited operations.
However, in light of the departure of Daughter #1, the accommodations mentioned in my previous letter are no longer feasible. I myself have taken over the functions of both your job and hers; the little ones are more self-sufficient every day and have stopped asking about you.
Thank you for sending copies of your poems and the one by your friend Mr Bukowski. Your Los Angeles life sounds very interesting, and I recognize, of course, that two poets really cannot be expected to take on parenting obligations while devoting their lives to Art.
Yrs,
Daughter #2 Irene
Washington, D.C.
November 15, 1963
Jon Webb, Editor, LOUJON Press
New Orleans, La.
RE: Book review and marketing plan
Dear Mr Webb,
Thank you very much for forwarding the signed copy of Charles Bukowski’s recent book, It Catches My Heart in Its Hands, which you tell me in your cover letter is ‘already a collector’s item’ which I should ‘take good care of.’ I note your offer that that if anyone I know would like a copy ‘they may have 30% off.’
Regarding the personalized inscription, ‘To Irene Smith: Of the Good Poetic Mother’, can you tell me if the Great Poet’s handwritten note makes the book more valuable, or less? Just asking.
As it happens, Mr Bukowski and I have never met, and, for that matter, I have not seen the Good Poetic Mother in almost a year. I have read some of these poems, looking (of course) for some mention of my actual mother, but after seeing what the poet has to say about other women, have set the book aside, at least for now. I am sure this collection is much admired by those who know more than I about these things, but at fifteen I am afraid I lack sufficient literary discrimination to assess its merits. Further, as one left behind in favour of a Life in Letters, I cannot claim the necessary impartiality to respond to the work fully or fairly.
I am afraid that I will be unable to assist in marketing this collection, notwithstanding the generous discount you offer.
Regretfully,
Irene Hoge Smith (Not-Poetic Daughter)
Cc: Frances Dean Smith (Good Poetic Mother)
Washington, D.C.
December 10, 1964
Frances Dean Smith Bukowski
Los Angeles, CA
RE: Revised Expectations
Dear Mrs Bukowski,
I note that the poems you sent me recently are signed ‘f.d.b.’ and, since you and the Great Poet now have a daughter together, I assume this is the name you use now, despite not actually being married. (I do understand that poets don’t follow the same rules as other people.)
It seems that the assumptions I expressed in my earlier letters about your reasons for leaving your former post were incorrect. I had believed that being a poet was incompatible with being a mother, but the information now at hand would seem to disprove that hypothesis.
While I am somewhat confused, I do hope everything works out well for all of you.
Goodbye and good luck,
Irene Hoge Smith
Washington, DC
December 15, 1969
Frances Dean Smith c/o Ida Mae Dean
Garden Grove, CA
RE: Your offer
Dear Mrs Smith,
I have received your letter of November 15, but am not sure that you read my letters to you on February 4 and September 19 of this year, bringing you up to date on my life here. I had assumed that, despite having resigned from your post as Mother of Four several years ago, you would nonetheless be pleased to know that I am supporting myself, going to college at night, and am engaged to be married. I must conclude from your silence on these points that they are not matters of interest to you.
I am afraid that I do not find it feasible to abandon my responsibilities here in order to accept the assignment you offer in California, despite the intriguing description of the ‘borrowed trailer not far from the beach’, which you and my little half-sister expect to occupy soon.
I was sorry to hear that you and Mr Bukowski are no longer together. I note that your current address is once again care of your mother, and assume that your plan to move in with Daughter #1 and her two small children did not work out, either. Like her, I must decline your offer of the position of Resident Adult-in-Charge.
Sincerely,
Irene Hoge Smith
Washington, DC
July 30, 1996
Frances Dean Smith a.k.a. FrancEyE
Los Angeles, CA
RE: Book review and author profile
Dear Mama/FrancEyE,
Thank you for sending a copy of your collection, Snaggletooth in Ocean Park. I enjoyed our phone conversation the other day and have been thinking since about the fact that you have been a poet for your entire life (except, as you mentioned, ‘that long dry spell when I was married to your father’). I realize that it has been unfair of me to judge you based only on the rather few years when you were trying to be my mother. With two children of my own, and having outgrown the need for a mother myself, I can recognize your significant accomplishments outside the narrow sphere of motherhood and I am even coming to appreciate your poems.
Your new writing name, which you explain alludes to the writer’s “eye,” is most intriguing. I recall various names you’ve used over the years, starting with Frances Dean Smith. What seem to be the first works you published after leaving the East Coast are written under the name ‘S. S. Veri.’ It took me quite a while to discover (or remember?) that the name refers to a Latin motto Simplex Sigilum Veri, meaning ‘simplicity is the seal of truth,’ and now that I think about it, I’ve always liked that pen name best. Some poems you sent me during the years when you and The Great Poet lived together were signed ‘f.d.b.’ (which I understood indicated Frances Dean Bukowski, along with, perhaps, some ambivalence about using a man’s name once again.) ‘FrancEyE,’ finally, is yours alone. Is it pronounced Fran’s Eye, or France-Eye? And is that what you wish to be called, going forward?
Sincerely,
Irene
Washington, D.C.
January 8, 2004
FrancEyE
Los Angeles, CA
RE: Congratulations, appreciation, offer of feedback
Dear FrancEyE,
I am writing to congratulate you on the publication of your latest collection of poetry, Amber Spider, and to thank you for sending me a signed copy. I am excited to hear of your plans for a memoir, and flattered to be asked to read a draft. I will be especially happy to offer my perspective on the sections of your book that have to do with the fourteen years during which you and I were together.
I look forward to receiving your manuscript.
Warm regards,
Irene
Washington, D.C.
August 31, 2005
FrancEyE
Los Angeles, CA
RE: Review of Grandma Stories
Dear FrancEyE,
Thank you for sharing the galleys of your soon-to-be-released memoir, Grandma Stories. I find much to appreciate in this lovely collection of prose poems, recounting your life from infancy up to the point when you reinvented yourself in Los Angeles in 1963, met the Great Poet, and had his child. I note that the book is dedicated to “Grandson #4,” and although you have ten other grandchildren (my children being Grandson #2 and Granddaughter #7), I have grown very fond of my half-sister and her sweet son, and am perfectly okay with that choice.
However, I also note that nowhere in the memoir do you make any reference to the decade and a half during which you were married to my father and were my mother. I am not in your book, and am forced to say that I am not really okay with that.
I regret that I will not be able to attend the book launch party. The trip to Los Angeles is more than I can undertake at this time (three thousand miles, as I’m sure you recognize, is the least of the difficulty). In that light I feel that I must request to be released from my commitments as your beta reader.
Best regards,
Daughter #2 (formerly The Loyal One)
Washington, D.C.
November 23, 2007
FrancEyE, c/o Daughter #5
Albany CA
RE: Interview Request
Dear FrancEyE,
I am sorry to hear that your health is not good, but pleased that you are able to stay for a while with Daughter #5. I look forward to seeing you next month, when daughter #3 and I will be in California for our half-sister’s wedding. I hope that we might find a time to talk with you while visiting California. We still have lots of questions about our earlier life, and about you, and hope that you will feel up to an interview.
I would like to apologize for my earlier misunderstanding about the gaps in your memoir. Having had some experiences of my own about which I cannot bear to write, I comprehend your situation more clearly.
Warm regards,
Irene
Washington, D.C.
May 31, 2009
FrancEyE
Northgate Care Center, San Rafael, CA
Dear Mama,
It was good to be able to visit with you last month, and to provide some assistance to Daughter #5 as she manages your current placement. She is taking very good care of you, and I was relieved to find your current circumstances relatively comfortable. It was a delight to receive a copy of your latest collection of poetry, Call. Having (against all odds) taken up writing myself, I am in awe of the body of work you have accumulated during a lifetime dedicated to this arduous calling. You have much to be proud of.
I cannot thank you enough for agreeing to the interview a little over a year ago, and for providing so much useful data about our shared history. While you were not able to incorporate that material in your own memoir, I believe I may now be able to take that project forward myself.
love,
Irene
P.S. I just noticed that you are living in San Rafael, in fact not far from the little hospital where you were born eighty-seven years ago. Perhaps there is a poem in that.
* * *
LOS ANGELES TIMES OBITUARIES
FrancEyE dies at 87; prolific Santa Monica poet
BY CLAIRE NOLAND JUN 21, 2009
Frances Dean Smith, a Santa Monica poet known as FrancEyE who was inspired by Charles Bukowski, lived with him and had a child with him in the 1960s, has died. She was 87.
Smith, who had been living in a nursing home in San Rafael, Calif., died June 2 at Marin General Hospital in nearby Greenbrae of complications from a broken hip. . .
A singular character affectionately called the Bearded Witch of Ocean Park—or, as Bukowski fondly referred to her in one poem, Old Snaggle-Tooth—Smith had lived in the Ocean Park neighbourhood of Santa Monica for decades. Her work under the pen name FrancEyE was published in poetry journals and gathered in the collections Snaggletooth in Ocean Park (Sacred Beverage Press, 1996), Amber Spider (Pearl, 2004), Grandma Stories (Conflux Press, 2008) and Call (Rose of Sharon Press, 2008). . . Although Smith had been writing poetry in fits and starts nearly all her life, she arrived in Los Angeles in the early 1960s determined to reinvent herself, leaving behind the man she had divorced and the four daughters they had produced during an unhappy marriage. . .
Frances Elizabeth Dean was born March 19, 1922, in San Rafael. Her father died when she was a child, and his family took his widow and two daughters into their home in Lexington, Mass. She became interested in poetry and as a teenager had poems published in Scholastic magazine and the influential Saturday Review of Literature. She attended Smith College for two years but left at the onset of World War II to join the Women’s Army Corps, based in the Washington, D.C., area. . .
A celebration of her life will be held at 1 p.m. today at the Church in Ocean Park, 235 Hill St., Santa Monica. Instead of flowers, her family suggests donations to the Church in Ocean Park or a charity. AQ