Misplaced Pages

FrancEyE aka Frances Dean Smith (March 19, 1922 – June 2, 2009), was an American poet.

Biography

Frances Dean Smith was born Frances Elizabeth Dean, in San Rafael, California, on March 19, 1922. During her childhood her family moved to the East Coast, where she grew up.

She married Wray Smith while living on the East Coast. They had four daughters, Patricia, Irene, Sara, and Ruth, and eventually divorced. Frances returned to California in 1963, leaving her daughters with their father.

She was closely associated with the Southern California poetry community. She is also noted for her relationship with poet Charles Bukowski, with whom she had her fifth daughter and his only child, Marina Louise Bukowski. Charles Bukowski wrote a poem about Frances which has been used as a eulogy, "One for Old Snaggle-Tooth" (1977).

Throughout her long career as a writer she never sought to capitalize on her connection to Bukowski and was revered as “The Bearded Witch of Santa Monica.” She died from complications of a hip fracture in Marin General Hospital in Greenbrae, California, early on June 2, 2009.

Works

• Four Poets, (Ruth Wire, Grace Bogart, Joanne Stell, S.S.Veri), written under the pseudonym S.S. Veri
• Snaggletooth in Ocean Park, poems, 1996 (The Sacred Beverage Press)
• Amber Spider, poems, 2004 (Pearl Press)
• Grandma Stories, short stories (with drawings by Tim Donnelly), 2008
• Call, poems, 2009 (Rose of Sharon Press)

Film appearances

• Bukowski: Born Into This (2003) Documentary on Charles Bukowski.
• Graffiti Verité 6: "The Odyssey: Poets Passion & Poetry" (2006)

References

1. ^ "FrancEyE dies at 87; prolific Santa Monica poet" Los Angeles Times Retrieved on June 3, 2009
2. Charles Bukowski (1977) Love Is A Dog From Hell, Black Sparrow Press
3. Graffiti Verité 6: The Odyssey (Video 2006) - IMDb

External links

• Review of Baby Grandma in the Santa Monica Mirror
• Brief Bio on Poetry Superhighway
• Interviewed re: Bukowski in an LA Times article on Poets
• FrancEyE Frances Dean Smith 1922-2009
• francEyE - poems

• 1922 births
• 2009 deaths
• American women poets
• Writers from San Rafael, California
• 20th-century American poets
• 20th-century American women writers
• Poets from Los Angeles
• 21st-century American women