🔹 A Flint-born Voice for Conversations That Matter
David L. Stanley; poet, novelist, educator, thinker, do-er
🔹 A Flint-born Voice for Conversations That Matter
1. About the Author
David L. Stanley is a published poet, educator, voice actor (with 40 audiobook narrations in his list), and literary novelist from Flint, Michigan. His book on melanoma; Melanoma, it Started with a Freckle, was lauded by Prof. Tom Foster of How to Read Literature Like a Professor as “harrowing, insightful, technical, and hilarious.” His work honors the quiet heroism of ordinary lives, blending radical empathy with philosophical depth. Through sonnets, fiction, and non-fiction, he explores grief, resilience, and moral clarity—always rooted in lived experience and civic memory.
2. Excerpt from Consider the Goat
“My Grandma Leona kept this scrapbook. Filled with odds and ends. Stuff like when the new highway extension would open, how the strawberry festival went, the Duty Roster from World War II and Korea, who was drafted and enlisted, where they were headed, who had come home; that scrapbook is a little look at 1950s America, I tell you. Anyway, I found this poem in there. Every year since Dad died, I bring it down here on Memorial Day and read it to him. Today, I’m gonna read it to both of you. It’s a poem, a sonnet.
My chin quivered. I welled up again.
“I am not sure who wrote it,” he said, “but right there, in 140 syllables, that is Memorial Day. That is what today is about, heh? You sign up, nobody knows who, but everyone knows, someone will not come home. It is a myth, yes, that bullets have names on them? Bullets get delivered to whoever answers the door.”
This passage captures the heart of Consider the Goat—a novel about friendship, resistance, and the burden of bearing witness. It’s a story for anyone who’s ever stood alone for what’s right, or carried the weight of memory as a form of love.
3. Selected Sonnets.
4. Sonnet:visioN Channel
Explore David’s digital archive of sonnets and reflections on Sonnet:visioN. Each video is a crafted moment—spoken with care, rooted in philosophy, and offered as a gesture of healing.
5. Why This Conversation Matters
David’s work is a living testament to the kind of dialogue Rich Roll has championed for years: honest, vulnerable, and morally awake. Whether through poetry or fiction, he invites listeners to reflect, remember, and resist. A conversation between David and Rich would be a meeting of kindred spirits—both committed to the transformative power of story.