Frank Stanford
Encyclopedia
Frank Stanford was a prolific American
poet
. He is most known for his epic
, The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You
— a labyrinthine, highly lexical book absent stanzas and punctuation. In addition, Stanford published six shorter books of poetry
throughout his 20s, and three posthumous collections of his writings (as well as a book of selected poems) have also been published.
Just shy of his 30th birthday, Stanford died on June 3, 1978 in his home in Fayetteville, Arkansas
, the victim of three self-inflicted
pistol
wounds to the heart
. In the three decades since, he has become somewhat of a cult figure in American letters.
It wasn't a dream, it was a flood.
Dorothy Margaret Smith at the Emery Memorial Home in Richton, Mississippi
. He was soon adopted by a single divorcee
named Dorothy Gilbert Alter (1911-2000), who was Firestone
's first female manager. In 1952, Gilbert married successful Memphis
levee
engineer
Albert Franklin Stanford (1884-1963), who subsequently also adopted “Frankie” and his younger, adoptive sister, “Ruthie” (Bettina Ruth). Stanford attended Sherwood Elementary School and Sherwood Junior High School in Memphis until 1961 when the family moved to Mountain Home, Arkansas
following A. F. Stanford's retirement; Stanford finished junior high school
in Mountain Home. The elder Stanford died after the poet's freshman
year at Mountain Home High School
.
In 1964, as a junior
, Stanford entered Subiaco Academy
— a boys' prep school
run by Benedictine
monk
s who provided a rigorous liberal arts
and physical fitness
curriculum
— near Paris, Arkansas
in the Ouachita Mountains
. After graduating in May 1966, he entered the University of Arkansas
in Fayetteville
in the fall, first studying business
, but soon switching to the College of Arts and Sciences. In fall
1968, Stanford took a poetry class from instructor James Whitehead who — quickly impressed with Stanford's talent — let the undergraduate
poet into the graduate
poetry-writing workshop
for the following semester, spring 1969. Stanford soon became known throughout the Fayetteville
literary community and published poetry in the student literary magazine
, Preview. However, he left the university in 1970, never earning a degree.
and magazines around the world. In 1969, he met Linda Mencin, the daughter of a retired Naval
Commander
and World War II
ace
, through a mutual friend. The two soon moved into a house in Fayetteville's Mt. Sequoyah neighborhood together, Mencin working for the War on Poverty
and Stanford writing poetry— oftentimes all day long. In Mt. Sequoyah, Stanford worked away on his magnum opus
, The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You
— which he had likely begun as a teenager — handwriting the poem in pen
on his and Mencin's dining room
table. The full chronology of the creation of the poem is almost fatefully obscured, but consensus is that Stanford worked on the manuscript
sporadically over many years until late 1974 or 1975, by which time the book was finished.
In June 1970, he met Irv Broughton
, the editor and publisher of Mill Mountain Press, at the Hollins Conference on Creative Writing and Cinema. Broughton read Stanford's work at the conference and agreed to publish the poet's first book, The Singing Knives. Five of Stanford's poems appeared in The Mill Mountain Review later that year, and in 1971, The Singing Knives was published as a limited edition
chapbook
. That summer, Stanford and Mencin married, but, after having lived together for two years, Mencin left the poet after only three months of marriage.
Stanford spent much of 1972 traveling through the South
and New England
with Broughton, a communications
teacher and filmmaker
. Together, the two interviewed and filmed poets/writers Richard Eberhart
, Malcolm Cowley
, and John Crowe Ransom
. (These interviews appear in The Writer’s Mind: Interviews With American Authors, a three-volume set.) Broughton tutored Stanford in the technical aspects of camera work, and the poet developed an interest in filmmaking
. Moreover, he briefly lived in New York City
, if perhaps for merely a few weeks, but only, he would later write, "to go to the movies." Returning to Arkansas from New York, he moved to the old spa town
of Eureka Springs
and took a room in the New Orleans Hotel.
At the New Orleans Hotel, Stanford continued work on The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You
. In March 1973 in Neosho, Missouri
, on a weekend away from Eureka Springs
, Stanford met painter Ginny Crouch, and they soon began living together, settling first in a cabin (and then a house) on the White River
near Eureka Springs and later in a house near Rogers, Arkansas
on Beaver Lake
, merely a few miles from Mencin's parents. Stanford and Crouch married in October 1974 while living on Beaver Lake.
For several years — beginning as early as 1970 — Stanford meagerly supported himself (and his second wife) by working as an unlicensed land surveyor
. The profession permeated his poetry in numerous instances, perhaps most notably à la the poem, "Lament Of The Land Surveyor." Broughton and Stanford made a 25-minute documentary
about Stanford's work and life — filmed in Arkansas
and Mississippi
, discussing the land surveyor's experiences, and interviewing friends on whom Stanford's literary characters were sometimes based — titled, It Wasn't A Dream, It Was A Flood
, which won one of the Judge's Awards at the 1975 Northwest Film & Video Festival.
Based in Washington, Broughton received manuscripts from Stanford, sometimes transcribing additional poems via telephone from him in Arkansas, Missouri, and the East Coast. Following the publication of The Singing Knives, Broughton's Mill Mountain Press published five more of Stanford's chapbook-length manuscripts between 1974 and 1976. Ladies From Hell appeared in 1974, followed by Field Talk, Shade, and Arkansas Bench Stone in 1975; all four books included drawings by Ginny Stanford. Perhaps the strongest of the chapbooks, Constant Stranger, was released the following year.
Returning to Fayetteville in 1975, Stanford reestablished relationships with local area writers and met poet C. D. Wright
, a graduate student
in the MFA program
at the University of Arkansas
. The two poets began an affair
which would last the rest of Stanford's life. In 1976, Stanford rented a house in Fayetteville on Jackson Drive with Wright and established the independent publishing operation Lost Roads Publishers
to publish the work of talented poets without ready access to publishing; he said that his purpose with the press was to "reclaim the landscape of American poetry." That fall, the Stanfords moved from Beaver Lake to the Crouch family's farm in southern Missouri
, Stanford continuing his double life between his wife in Missouri and Wright in Fayetteville.
, Stanford's teacher, Jim Whitehead, referred to Stanford as "the most exciting young Arkansas poet he knows."
1977 also saw the publication of Stanford's most substantial and influential book, The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You
. A joint publication by Mill Mountain Press and Lost Roads (taking up numbers 7-12 in the Lost Roads catalog), the published version of the epic (which had, at one point, according to Stanford, reached over 1,000 pages and 40,000 lines) settled at 542 pages (383 pages in the second, 2000, edition) and 15,283 lines. Friends and poets — some prominent — had read parts or all of the manuscript, at least in earlier forms, years before its publication. In an April 1974 letter, Stanford comments that poet Alan Dugan
had written to him with the response, "This is better than good, it is great ... one day it will explode." The poem, perhaps surprisingly, has yet to "explode," but has achieved almost mythic status.
By 1978, Stanford was heavily occupied with Lost Roads
' publishing endeavors. Father Nicholas Fuhrmann, Stanford's former English teacher and longtime friend, has noted that Stanford was, during this period, visiting his mother (who lived in Subiaco
) more often than had seemed usual. Stanford spent his last two and a half weeks in New Orleans before returning to Fayetteville
on June 3. In New Orleans, he wrote a suicide note, which included a will. On June 3, Stanford's friend, Sherman Morgan, met him at Fayetteville's Drake Field and drove him from the airport to his home at 705 Jackson Drive.
. Both Ginny Stanford and C. D. Wright were in the house at the time of his death. Stanford's funeral was held on Tuesday, June 6 at Subiaco Abbey Church; he was buried in St. Benedict's Cemetery at Subiaco
beneath a stand of yellow pines, five miles (eight km) from the Arkansas River
.
Aside from conceivable shame, other potentially oppressive factors may have motivated Stanford's suicide
. For instance, some of his peers and others have suggested that he may have intended to die before the age of 30. Furthermore, Father Fuhrmann, who had met with Stanford shortly before his death, feels that the poet had "a lot on his mind," and Wright and Ginny Stanford reported that he was depressed and withdrawn on the day of his suicide. Stanford had also spent time at the Arkansas State Hospital (the state psychiatric hospital
) in Little Rock
in 1972 and may have had prior suicide attempts.
, as the founder of Mill Mountain Press. Even Stanford's very books have printed biographical and bibliographical errors; for instance, the biographical note for the posthumously published book, Crib Death, states that Stanford was "born in 1949 in Greenville, Mississippi," when in fact he was born in 1948 in Richton, Mississippi, some 240 miles (386.2 km) away, and the table of contents
for The Light The Dead See: Selected Poems of Frank Stanford lists The Singing Knives as having been published in 1972 and Crib Death as having been published in 1979, when in fact they were published in 1971 and 1978, respectively. It should be noted, though, that many inaccuracies surrounding Stanford's legacy are result of Stanford's own self-mythology, his own fabrications.
, editorship succeeded by C. D. Wright
, published a posthumous chapbook of yet more of Stanford's poems, titled You (as well as a limited edition reprint of The Singing Knives), in 1979. In 1990, the press released a collection of Stanford's short fiction
, titled Conditions Uncertain And Likely To Pass Away. A slim volume of selected poems, The Light The Dead See: Selected Poems of Frank Stanford, was published the following year by the University of Arkansas Press. Furthermore, much of Stanford's work is as yet unpublished, including the manuscripts: Flour The Dead Man Brings To The Wedding and The Last Panther In The Ozarks (which combine to make one manuscript
), Automatic Co-Pilot, Plain Songs (after Jean Follain
), and Wounds, among others.
chapbook
s, long since out of print
. In October 2000, Lost Roads republished The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You in a corrected edition with numbered lines, and the press reprinted the book again in 2008. In February 2008, Lost Roads reissued The Singing Knives and You.
s of wild embellishment with recurring characters in an imaginary landscape, drawn from his childhood in the Mississippi Delta
and the Ozark mountains
— are immediately recognizable, and his oeuvre continues to be influential and well-received.
published C. D. Wright’s essay, “Frank Stanford, Of The Mulberry Family: An Arkansas Epilogue.”
Stanford has also been written about in at least two novel
s — Steve Stern's The Moon & Ruben Shein and Forrest Gander
's As A Friend — and two folk songs
— the Indigo Girls
' "Three Hits" and Lucinda Williams
' "Pineola;" the latter is a eulogy of sorts for Stanford, who was a family friend of the Williamses.
Stanford's impact on poetry was profound and lasting, and celebrations of his work frequently take place. A July 1997 tribute to Stanford in Fayetteville
featured readings
of Stanford's poetry and a screening
of It Wasn't A Dream, It Was A Flood
. All-night readings of The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You
have also occasionally occurred, such as one organized by Brown University
students in 1990 and another at New York
's Bowery Poetry Club
in April 2003. An October 2008 Frank Stanford Literary Festival in Fayetteville featured panel discussions of Stanford's work, a screening of It Wasn't A Dream, It Was A Flood
, and an all-night reading of The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You
.
"The Light the Dead See" became a Poetry Out Loud
selection in 2009.
process of poetry anthologies and university literature courses. He is one of the least known of the significant voices of latter 20th century
American poetry
, despite being widely published in many prominent magazines, including The American Poetry Review
, Chicago Review, FIELD
, The Iowa Review
, Ironwood, kayak, The Massachusetts Review
, The Mill Mountain Review, The Nation
, New American Review
, The New York Quarterly
, Poetry Now, and Prairie Schooner.
However, Stanford's work has received significant critical praise. Alan Dugan
— Pulitzer Prize
winner and National Book Award
recipient — called Stanford “a brilliant poet, ample in his work,” comparing him to Walt Whitman
. Poet Franz Wright
called him "one of the great voices of death." Poet Lorenzo Thomas
called him "amazing ... a swamprat Rimbaud
, poet James Wright
referred to him as a "superbly accomplished and moving poet," and poet Richard Eberhart
praised the "strange grace of language in the poet’s remarkable, unforgettable body of work." Leon Stokesbury introduces The Light The Dead See by claiming that Stanford was, "at the time of his death, the best poet in America under the age of thirty-five." Other contemporaries remarked his “perfectly tuned” ears, the “remarkable acuity” of his “clear-cut imagery and spring-tight lines,” and his “remarkable talent” as a “testimony to [his] place in American letters.”
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
. He is most known for his epic
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
, The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You
The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You
The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You is a 15,283-line epic poem by the poet Frank Stanford. First published in 1977 as a 542-page book, the poem is visually characterized by its absence of stanzas and punctuation and is recognized as a complex, unusual work — at once both highly humorous...
— a labyrinthine, highly lexical book absent stanzas and punctuation. In addition, Stanford published six shorter books of poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
throughout his 20s, and three posthumous collections of his writings (as well as a book of selected poems) have also been published.
Just shy of his 30th birthday, Stanford died on June 3, 1978 in his home in Fayetteville, Arkansas
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Fayetteville is the county seat of Washington County, and the third largest city in Arkansas. The city is centrally located within the county and is home to the University of Arkansas. Fayetteville is also deep in the Boston Mountains, a subset of The Ozarks...
, the victim of three self-inflicted
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
pistol
Handgun
A handgun is a firearm designed to be held and operated by one hand. This characteristic differentiates handguns as a general class of firearms from long guns such as rifles and shotguns ....
wounds to the heart
Heart
The heart is a myogenic muscular organ found in all animals with a circulatory system , that is responsible for pumping blood throughout the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions...
. In the three decades since, he has become somewhat of a cult figure in American letters.
Biography
Early life and education
Frank Stanford was born Francis Gildart Smith on August 1, 1948 to widowWidow
A widow is a woman whose spouse has died, while a widower is a man whose spouse has died. The state of having lost one's spouse to death is termed widowhood or occasionally viduity. The adjective form is widowed...
Dorothy Margaret Smith at the Emery Memorial Home in Richton, Mississippi
Richton, Mississippi
Richton is a town in Perry County, Mississippi, United States. It is part of the Hattiesburg, Mississippi Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 1,038 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Richton is located at ....
. He was soon adopted by a single divorcee
Divorcee
Divorcee, refers to a person whose marriage has ended in divorce, a legal dissolution of marriage before death by either spouse. The feminine form is "divorcée", and the masculine "divorcé". At one time the term had negative cultural and religious associations...
named Dorothy Gilbert Alter (1911-2000), who was Firestone
Firestone Tire and Rubber Company
The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company is an American tire company founded by Harvey Firestone in 1900 to supply pneumatic tires for wagons, buggies, and other forms of wheeled transportation common in the era. Firestone soon saw the huge potential for marketing tires for automobiles. The company...
's first female manager. In 1952, Gilbert married successful Memphis
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
levee
Levee
A levee, levée, dike , embankment, floodbank or stopbank is an elongated naturally occurring ridge or artificially constructed fill or wall, which regulates water levels...
engineer
Engineer
An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...
Albert Franklin Stanford (1884-1963), who subsequently also adopted “Frankie” and his younger, adoptive sister, “Ruthie” (Bettina Ruth). Stanford attended Sherwood Elementary School and Sherwood Junior High School in Memphis until 1961 when the family moved to Mountain Home, Arkansas
Mountain Home, Arkansas
Mountain Home is a city in and the county seat of Baxter County, Arkansas, United States, in the southern Ozark Mountains.It was recently listed in the top 20 cities in the U.S. for sportsmen in the current edition of Outdoor Life magazine, was recently ranked #2 for Field and Stream's Best Fishing...
following A. F. Stanford's retirement; Stanford finished junior high school
Middle school
Middle School and Junior High School are levels of schooling between elementary and high schools. Most school systems use one term or the other, not both. The terms are not interchangeable...
in Mountain Home. The elder Stanford died after the poet's freshman
Freshman
A freshman or fresher is a first-year student in secondary school, high school, or college. The term first year can also be used as a noun, to describe the students themselves A freshman (US) or fresher (UK, India) (or sometimes fish, freshie, fresher; slang plural frosh or freshmeat) is a...
year at Mountain Home High School
Mountain Home High School (Mountain Home, Arkansas)
Mountain Home High School is a public secondary school in Mountain Home, Arkansas, located in Baxter County. Mountain Home High School is located at 500 Bomber Blvd. There are 875 students in grades 10, 11, and 12. Mrs. Dana Brown is the high school principal. Assistant principals are Mr. Ron...
.
Eleventh grade
Eleventh Grade is the eleventh, and for some countries final, grade of secondary schools. Students are typically 16 or 17 years of age, depending on the country and the students' birthdays.-Brazil:...
, Stanford entered Subiaco Academy
Subiaco Abbey and Academy
Subiaco Abbey is a Benedictine monastery located in Logan County, Arkansas, United States, in the Arkansas River valley. Subiaco Abbey and its associated academy are major features of the town of Subiaco, Arkansas. It is located within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Little Rock. It is named after...
— a boys' prep school
University-preparatory school
A university-preparatory school or college-preparatory school is a secondary school, usually private, designed to prepare students for a college or university education...
run by Benedictine
Benedictine
Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...
monk
Monk
A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...
s who provided a rigorous liberal arts
Liberal arts
The term liberal arts refers to those subjects which in classical antiquity were considered essential for a free citizen to study. Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic were the core liberal arts. In medieval times these subjects were extended to include mathematics, geometry, music and astronomy...
and physical fitness
Physical fitness
Physical fitness comprises two related concepts: general fitness , and specific fitness...
curriculum
Curriculum
See also Syllabus.In formal education, a curriculum is the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school or university. As an idea, curriculum stems from the Latin word for race course, referring to the course of deeds and experiences through which children grow to become mature adults...
— near Paris, Arkansas
Paris, Arkansas
Paris is a city in Logan County, Arkansas, United States, and serves as the county seat for the northern district of Logan County; its southern district counterpart is Booneville. The population was 3,707 at the 2000 census.-Geography:...
in the Ouachita Mountains
Ouachita Mountains
The Ouachita Mountains are a mountain range in west central Arkansas and southeastern Oklahoma. The range's subterranean roots may extend as far as central Texas, or beyond it to the current location of the Marathon Uplift. Along with the Ozark Mountains, the Ouachita Mountains form the U.S...
. After graduating in May 1966, he entered the University of Arkansas
University of Arkansas
The University of Arkansas is a public, co-educational, land-grant, space-grant, research university. It is classified by the Carnegie Foundation as a research university with very high research activity. It is the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas System and is located in...
in Fayetteville
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Fayetteville is the county seat of Washington County, and the third largest city in Arkansas. The city is centrally located within the county and is home to the University of Arkansas. Fayetteville is also deep in the Boston Mountains, a subset of The Ozarks...
in the fall, first studying business
Business
A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...
, but soon switching to the College of Arts and Sciences. In fall
Autumn
Autumn is one of the four temperate seasons. Autumn marks the transition from summer into winter usually in September or March when the arrival of night becomes noticeably earlier....
1968, Stanford took a poetry class from instructor James Whitehead who — quickly impressed with Stanford's talent — let the undergraduate
Undergraduate education
Undergraduate education is an education level taken prior to gaining a first degree . Hence, in many subjects in many educational systems, undergraduate education is post-secondary education up to the level of a bachelor's degree, such as in the United States, where a university entry level is...
poet into the graduate
Graduate school
A graduate school is a school that awards advanced academic degrees with the general requirement that students must have earned a previous undergraduate degree...
poetry-writing workshop
Workshop
A workshop is a room or building which provides both the area and tools that may be required for the manufacture or repair of manufactured goods...
for the following semester, spring 1969. Stanford soon became known throughout the Fayetteville
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Fayetteville is the county seat of Washington County, and the third largest city in Arkansas. The city is centrally located within the county and is home to the University of Arkansas. Fayetteville is also deep in the Boston Mountains, a subset of The Ozarks...
literary community and published poetry in the student literary magazine
Literary magazine
A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry and essays along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letters...
, Preview. However, he left the university in 1970, never earning a degree.
1969-1972
Over the next several years, Stanford kept writing, publishing in a wide range of literary journalsLiterary magazine
A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry and essays along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letters...
and magazines around the world. In 1969, he met Linda Mencin, the daughter of a retired Naval
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
Commander
Commander
Commander is a naval rank which is also sometimes used as a military title depending on the individual customs of a given military service. Commander is also used as a rank or title in some organizations outside of the armed forces, particularly in police and law enforcement.-Commander as a naval...
and World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
ace
Flying ace
A flying ace or fighter ace is a military aviator credited with shooting down several enemy aircraft during aerial combat. The actual number of aerial victories required to officially qualify as an "ace" has varied, but is usually considered to be five or more...
, through a mutual friend. The two soon moved into a house in Fayetteville's Mt. Sequoyah neighborhood together, Mencin working for the War on Poverty
War on Poverty
The War on Poverty is the unofficial name for legislation first introduced by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during his State of the Union address on January 8, 1964. This legislation was proposed by Johnson in response to a national poverty rate of around nineteen percent...
and Stanford writing poetry— oftentimes all day long. In Mt. Sequoyah, Stanford worked away on his magnum opus
Masterpiece
Masterpiece in modern usage refers to a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or to a work of outstanding creativity, skill or workmanship....
, The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You
The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You
The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You is a 15,283-line epic poem by the poet Frank Stanford. First published in 1977 as a 542-page book, the poem is visually characterized by its absence of stanzas and punctuation and is recognized as a complex, unusual work — at once both highly humorous...
— which he had likely begun as a teenager — handwriting the poem in pen
Pen
A pen is a device used to apply ink to a surface, usually paper, for writing or drawing. Historically, reed pens, quill pens, and dip pens were used, with a nib of some sort to be dipped in the ink. Ruling pens allow precise adjustment of line width, and still find a few specialized uses, but...
on his and Mencin's dining room
Dining room
A dining room is a room for consuming food. In modern times it is usually adjacent to the kitchen for convenience in serving, although in medieval times it was often on an entirely different floor level...
table. The full chronology of the creation of the poem is almost fatefully obscured, but consensus is that Stanford worked on the manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
sporadically over many years until late 1974 or 1975, by which time the book was finished.
The Minnow If I press on its head, the eyes will come out like stars. The ripples it makes can move the moon. |
| Frank Stanford, ©1971. |
In June 1970, he met Irv Broughton
Irving Broughton
Irving "Irv" Broughton is a publisher, writer, filmmaker, and teacher known for having discovered the talent of poet Frank Stanford. The two met at the Hollins Conference on Creative Writing and Cinema in 1970. Broughton read Stanford's poems there and agreed to publish the poet's first book, The...
, the editor and publisher of Mill Mountain Press, at the Hollins Conference on Creative Writing and Cinema. Broughton read Stanford's work at the conference and agreed to publish the poet's first book, The Singing Knives. Five of Stanford's poems appeared in The Mill Mountain Review later that year, and in 1971, The Singing Knives was published as a limited edition
Special edition
The terms special edition, limited edition and variants such as deluxe edition, collector's edition and others, are used as a marketing incentive for various kinds of products, originally published products related to the arts, such as books, prints or recorded music and films, but now including...
chapbook
Chapbook
A chapbook is a pocket-sized booklet. The term chap-book was formalized by bibliophiles of the 19th century, as a variety of ephemera , popular or folk literature. It includes many kinds of printed material such as pamphlets, political and religious tracts, nursery rhymes, poetry, folk tales,...
. That summer, Stanford and Mencin married, but, after having lived together for two years, Mencin left the poet after only three months of marriage.
Stanford spent much of 1972 traveling through the South
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
and New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
with Broughton, a communications
Communication studies
Communication Studies is an academic field that deals with processes of communication, commonly defined as the sharing of symbols over distances in space and time. Hence, communication studies encompasses a wide range of topics and contexts ranging from face-to-face conversation to speeches to mass...
teacher and filmmaker
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
. Together, the two interviewed and filmed poets/writers Richard Eberhart
Richard Eberhart
Richard Ghormley Eberhart was an American poet who published more than a dozen books of poetry and approximately twenty works in total...
, Malcolm Cowley
Malcolm Cowley
Malcolm Cowley was an American novelist, poet, literary critic, and journalist.-Early life:...
, and John Crowe Ransom
John Crowe Ransom
John Crowe Ransom was an American poet, essayist, magazine editor, and professor.-Life:...
. (These interviews appear in The Writer’s Mind: Interviews With American Authors, a three-volume set.) Broughton tutored Stanford in the technical aspects of camera work, and the poet developed an interest in filmmaking
Filmmaking
Filmmaking is the process of making a film, from an initial story, idea, or commission, through scriptwriting, casting, shooting, directing, editing, and screening the finished product before an audience that may result in a theatrical release or television program...
. Moreover, he briefly lived in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, if perhaps for merely a few weeks, but only, he would later write, "to go to the movies." Returning to Arkansas from New York, he moved to the old spa town
Spa town
A spa town is a town situated around a mineral spa . Patrons resorted to spas to "take the waters" for their purported health benefits. The word comes from the Belgian town Spa. In continental Europe a spa was known as a ville d'eau...
of Eureka Springs
Eureka Springs, Arkansas
Eureka Springs is a city in Carroll County, Arkansas, United States. Along with Berryville, it is one of the two county seats for the county. It is located in the Ozark Mountains of northwest Arkansas. According to 2006 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the town is 2,350...
and took a room in the New Orleans Hotel.
1973-1976
The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You
The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You is a 15,283-line epic poem by the poet Frank Stanford. First published in 1977 as a 542-page book, the poem is visually characterized by its absence of stanzas and punctuation and is recognized as a complex, unusual work — at once both highly humorous...
. In March 1973 in Neosho, Missouri
Neosho, Missouri
Neosho is the most populous city in and the county seat of Newton County, Missouri, United States. Neosho is an integral part of the Joplin, Missouri Metropolitan Statistical Area....
, on a weekend away from Eureka Springs
Eureka Springs, Arkansas
Eureka Springs is a city in Carroll County, Arkansas, United States. Along with Berryville, it is one of the two county seats for the county. It is located in the Ozark Mountains of northwest Arkansas. According to 2006 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the town is 2,350...
, Stanford met painter Ginny Crouch, and they soon began living together, settling first in a cabin (and then a house) on the White River
White River (Arkansas)
The White River is a 722-mile long river that flows through the U.S. states of Arkansas and Missouri.-Course:The source of the White River is in the Boston Mountains of northwest Arkansas, in the Ozark-St. Francis National Forest southeast of Fayetteville...
near Eureka Springs and later in a house near Rogers, Arkansas
Rogers, Arkansas
Rogers is a suburban city in Benton County, Arkansas, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city has a population of 55,964. The city is located in the Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers Metropolitan Area, in the northwest corner of the state.-History:...
on Beaver Lake
Beaver Lake (Arkansas)
Beaver Lake is a man-made reservoir in the Ozark Mountains of Northwest Arkansas and is formed by a dam across the White River. Beaver Lake has some of natural shoreline...
, merely a few miles from Mencin's parents. Stanford and Crouch married in October 1974 while living on Beaver Lake.
For several years — beginning as early as 1970 — Stanford meagerly supported himself (and his second wife) by working as an unlicensed land surveyor
Surveying
See Also: Public Land Survey SystemSurveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, and science of accurately determining the terrestrial or three-dimensional position of points and the distances and angles between them...
. The profession permeated his poetry in numerous instances, perhaps most notably à la the poem, "Lament Of The Land Surveyor." Broughton and Stanford made a 25-minute documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
about Stanford's work and life — filmed in Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
and Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
, discussing the land surveyor's experiences, and interviewing friends on whom Stanford's literary characters were sometimes based — titled, It Wasn't A Dream, It Was A Flood
It Wasn't A Dream, It Was A Flood
It Wasn't A Dream, It Was A Flood is a 1974 autobiographical, 16mm short film about poet Frank Stanford, made by Stanford and his publisher, Irv Broughton...
, which won one of the Judge's Awards at the 1975 Northwest Film & Video Festival.
Death In The Cool Evening I move Like the deer in the forest I see you before you See me We are like the moist rose Which opens alone When I'm dreaming I linger by the pool of many seasons Suddenly it is night Time passes like the shadows That were not There when you lifted your head Dreams leave their hind tracks Something red and warm to go by So it is the hunters of this world Close in. |
| Frank Stanford, ©1974. |
Based in Washington, Broughton received manuscripts from Stanford, sometimes transcribing additional poems via telephone from him in Arkansas, Missouri, and the East Coast. Following the publication of The Singing Knives, Broughton's Mill Mountain Press published five more of Stanford's chapbook-length manuscripts between 1974 and 1976. Ladies From Hell appeared in 1974, followed by Field Talk, Shade, and Arkansas Bench Stone in 1975; all four books included drawings by Ginny Stanford. Perhaps the strongest of the chapbooks, Constant Stranger, was released the following year.
Returning to Fayetteville in 1975, Stanford reestablished relationships with local area writers and met poet C. D. Wright
C. D. Wright
Carolyn D. "C. D." Wright is an American poet.-Biography:Wright was born in Mountain Home, Arkansas to a chancery judge and a court reporter. She earned a BA from Memphis State College in 1971 and briefly attended law school before leaving to pursue an MFA from the University of Arkansas, which...
, a graduate student
Postgraduate education
Postgraduate education involves learning and studying for degrees or other qualifications for which a first or Bachelor's degree generally is required, and is normally considered to be part of higher education...
in the MFA program
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
at the University of Arkansas
University of Arkansas
The University of Arkansas is a public, co-educational, land-grant, space-grant, research university. It is classified by the Carnegie Foundation as a research university with very high research activity. It is the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas System and is located in...
. The two poets began an affair
Affair
Affair may refer to professional, personal, or public business matters or to a particular business or private activity of a temporary duration, as in family affair, a private affair, or a romantic affair.-Political affair:...
which would last the rest of Stanford's life. In 1976, Stanford rented a house in Fayetteville on Jackson Drive with Wright and established the independent publishing operation Lost Roads Publishers
Lost Roads Publishers
Lost Roads is a small press founded in 1976 in Arkansas by poet Frank Stanford. Its stated mission is to publish essential books in contemporary literature. After Stanford's death in 1978, editorship was assumed by poet C. D. Wright, whose book, Room Rented By A Single Woman , had been the press'...
to publish the work of talented poets without ready access to publishing; he said that his purpose with the press was to "reclaim the landscape of American poetry." That fall, the Stanfords moved from Beaver Lake to the Crouch family's farm in southern Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
, Stanford continuing his double life between his wife in Missouri and Wright in Fayetteville.
1977-1978
In 1977, Lost Roads' first title, Wright’s Room Rented By A Single Woman, appeared, and more titles soon followed. The press would issue twelve books under Stanford's direction. Early in the year, in an article on Arkansas arts in The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, Stanford's teacher, Jim Whitehead, referred to Stanford as "the most exciting young Arkansas poet he knows."
The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You
1977 also saw the publication of Stanford's most substantial and influential book, The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You
The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You
The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You is a 15,283-line epic poem by the poet Frank Stanford. First published in 1977 as a 542-page book, the poem is visually characterized by its absence of stanzas and punctuation and is recognized as a complex, unusual work — at once both highly humorous...
. A joint publication by Mill Mountain Press and Lost Roads (taking up numbers 7-12 in the Lost Roads catalog), the published version of the epic (which had, at one point, according to Stanford, reached over 1,000 pages and 40,000 lines) settled at 542 pages (383 pages in the second, 2000, edition) and 15,283 lines. Friends and poets — some prominent — had read parts or all of the manuscript, at least in earlier forms, years before its publication. In an April 1974 letter, Stanford comments that poet Alan Dugan
Alan Dugan
Alan Dugan was an American poet.His first volume Poems published in 1961 was a chosen by the Yale Series of Younger Poets and went on to win the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry....
had written to him with the response, "This is better than good, it is great ... one day it will explode." The poem, perhaps surprisingly, has yet to "explode," but has achieved almost mythic status.
Final months and days
By 1978, Stanford was heavily occupied with Lost Roads
Lost Roads Publishers
Lost Roads is a small press founded in 1976 in Arkansas by poet Frank Stanford. Its stated mission is to publish essential books in contemporary literature. After Stanford's death in 1978, editorship was assumed by poet C. D. Wright, whose book, Room Rented By A Single Woman , had been the press'...
' publishing endeavors. Father Nicholas Fuhrmann, Stanford's former English teacher and longtime friend, has noted that Stanford was, during this period, visiting his mother (who lived in Subiaco
Subiaco, Arkansas
Subiaco is a town in Logan County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 439 at the 2000 census. The town is named after Subiaco in the Lazio region of Italy...
) more often than had seemed usual. Stanford spent his last two and a half weeks in New Orleans before returning to Fayetteville
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Fayetteville is the county seat of Washington County, and the third largest city in Arkansas. The city is centrally located within the county and is home to the University of Arkansas. Fayetteville is also deep in the Boston Mountains, a subset of The Ozarks...
on June 3. In New Orleans, he wrote a suicide note, which included a will. On June 3, Stanford's friend, Sherman Morgan, met him at Fayetteville's Drake Field and drove him from the airport to his home at 705 Jackson Drive.
Death
On the Saturday evening of June 3, 1978, Stanford took his own life in his home in Fayetteville. In her essay, "Death In The Cool Evening," widow Ginny Stanford notes that, having discovered her husband's infidelity, they argued about the matter; subsequently, Stanford retreated to his bedroom, and moments later, gunshots were heard: Stanford had thrice shot himself in the heart with a .22-caliber target pistolHandgun
A handgun is a firearm designed to be held and operated by one hand. This characteristic differentiates handguns as a general class of firearms from long guns such as rifles and shotguns ....
. Both Ginny Stanford and C. D. Wright were in the house at the time of his death. Stanford's funeral was held on Tuesday, June 6 at Subiaco Abbey Church; he was buried in St. Benedict's Cemetery at Subiaco
Subiaco, Arkansas
Subiaco is a town in Logan County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 439 at the 2000 census. The town is named after Subiaco in the Lazio region of Italy...
beneath a stand of yellow pines, five miles (eight km) from the Arkansas River
Arkansas River
The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. The Arkansas generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's initial basin starts in the Western United States in Colorado, specifically the Arkansas...
.
Aside from conceivable shame, other potentially oppressive factors may have motivated Stanford's suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
. For instance, some of his peers and others have suggested that he may have intended to die before the age of 30. Furthermore, Father Fuhrmann, who had met with Stanford shortly before his death, feels that the poet had "a lot on his mind," and Wright and Ginny Stanford reported that he was depressed and withdrawn on the day of his suicide. Stanford had also spent time at the Arkansas State Hospital (the state psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals, are hospitals specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialise only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients...
) in Little Rock
Little Rock, Arkansas
Little Rock is the capital and the largest city of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 699,757 people in the 2010 census...
in 1972 and may have had prior suicide attempts.
Legacy
Frank Stanford's legacy is one shrouded in (and perhaps tainted by) legend, mystification, and inaccuracies. Stanford frequently embellished his letters and personal anecdotes, and numerous misprints rampant throughout published articles and essays have confused even the most elemental details, hindering potential for critical scholarship. For example, a 2002 misprint in Poets & Writers credits Stanford, not BroughtonIrving Broughton
Irving "Irv" Broughton is a publisher, writer, filmmaker, and teacher known for having discovered the talent of poet Frank Stanford. The two met at the Hollins Conference on Creative Writing and Cinema in 1970. Broughton read Stanford's poems there and agreed to publish the poet's first book, The...
, as the founder of Mill Mountain Press. Even Stanford's very books have printed biographical and bibliographical errors; for instance, the biographical note for the posthumously published book, Crib Death, states that Stanford was "born in 1949 in Greenville, Mississippi," when in fact he was born in 1948 in Richton, Mississippi, some 240 miles (386.2 km) away, and the table of contents
Table of contents
A table of contents, usually headed simply "Contents" and abbreviated informally as TOC, is a list of the parts of a book or document organized in the order in which the parts appear...
for The Light The Dead See: Selected Poems of Frank Stanford lists The Singing Knives as having been published in 1972 and Crib Death as having been published in 1979, when in fact they were published in 1971 and 1978, respectively. It should be noted, though, that many inaccuracies surrounding Stanford's legacy are result of Stanford's own self-mythology, his own fabrications.
Instead Death is a good word. It often returns When it is very Dark outside and hot, Like a fisherman Over the limit, Without pain, sex, Or melancholy. Young as I am, I Hold light for this boat. When the rest of you Were being children I became a monk To my own listing Imagination. Nights and days floated Over the whorehouse Like webs on the lake, A monastery Full of noise and girls. The moon throws the knives. The poets echo goodbye, Towing silence too. Near my house was an Island, where a horse Lathered up alone. Oh, Abednego He was called, dusky, Cruel as a poem To a black gypsy. Sadness and whiskey Cost more than friends. I visit prisons, Orphanages, joints, Hoping I'll see them Again. Willows, ice, Minnows, no money. You'll have to say it Soon, you know. To your Wife, your child, yourself. |
| Frank Stanford, ©1979. |
Posthumous works
Ironwood Press published Stanford's chapbook, Crib Death, in 1978, shortly after his death. Lost RoadsLost Roads Publishers
Lost Roads is a small press founded in 1976 in Arkansas by poet Frank Stanford. Its stated mission is to publish essential books in contemporary literature. After Stanford's death in 1978, editorship was assumed by poet C. D. Wright, whose book, Room Rented By A Single Woman , had been the press'...
, editorship succeeded by C. D. Wright
C. D. Wright
Carolyn D. "C. D." Wright is an American poet.-Biography:Wright was born in Mountain Home, Arkansas to a chancery judge and a court reporter. She earned a BA from Memphis State College in 1971 and briefly attended law school before leaving to pursue an MFA from the University of Arkansas, which...
, published a posthumous chapbook of yet more of Stanford's poems, titled You (as well as a limited edition reprint of The Singing Knives), in 1979. In 1990, the press released a collection of Stanford's short fiction
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
, titled Conditions Uncertain And Likely To Pass Away. A slim volume of selected poems, The Light The Dead See: Selected Poems of Frank Stanford, was published the following year by the University of Arkansas Press. Furthermore, much of Stanford's work is as yet unpublished, including the manuscripts: Flour The Dead Man Brings To The Wedding and The Last Panther In The Ozarks (which combine to make one manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
), Automatic Co-Pilot, Plain Songs (after Jean Follain
Jean Follain
Jean Follain, was a French author, poet and corporate lawyer. In the early days of his career he was a member of the "Sagesse" group. Follain was a friend of Max Jacob, André Salmon, Jean Paulhan, Pierre Pussy, Armen Lubin, and Pierre Reverdy...
), and Wounds, among others.
Distribution
Despite flourishing interest in Frank Stanford's work, large publishing houses have yet to develop interest in the poet. Stanford's small press publishers to date — Mill Mountain, Ironwood, and Lost Roads — have faced variable limitations with respect to production and distribution, most of Stanford's titles having been released as limited editionSpecial edition
The terms special edition, limited edition and variants such as deluxe edition, collector's edition and others, are used as a marketing incentive for various kinds of products, originally published products related to the arts, such as books, prints or recorded music and films, but now including...
chapbook
Chapbook
A chapbook is a pocket-sized booklet. The term chap-book was formalized by bibliophiles of the 19th century, as a variety of ephemera , popular or folk literature. It includes many kinds of printed material such as pamphlets, political and religious tracts, nursery rhymes, poetry, folk tales,...
s, long since out of print
Out of print
Out of print refers to an item, typically a book , but can include any print or visual media or sound recording, that is in the state of no longer being published....
. In October 2000, Lost Roads republished The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You in a corrected edition with numbered lines, and the press reprinted the book again in 2008. In February 2008, Lost Roads reissued The Singing Knives and You.
Reception
Frank Stanford's poems — tall taleTall tale
A tall tale is a story with unbelievable elements, related as if it were true and factual. Some such stories are exaggerations of actual events, for example fish stories such as, "that fish was so big, why I tell ya', it nearly sank the boat when I pulled it in!" Other tall tales are completely...
s of wild embellishment with recurring characters in an imaginary landscape, drawn from his childhood in the Mississippi Delta
Mississippi Delta
The Mississippi Delta is the distinctive northwest section of the U.S. state of Mississippi that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers. The region has been called "The Most Southern Place on Earth" because of its unique racial, cultural, and economic history...
and the Ozark mountains
The Ozarks
The Ozarks are a physiographic and geologic highland region of the central United States. It covers much of the southern half of Missouri and an extensive portion of northwestern and north central Arkansas...
— are immediately recognizable, and his oeuvre continues to be influential and well-received.
Cultural response
In the 1990s, Ginny Stanford and C. D. Wright published accounts of their respective relationships to Stanford, both during his life and afterward. Ginny Stanford published two essays: “Requiem: A Fragment,” in The New Orleans Review in 1994, and its companion piece of sorts, "Death In The Cool Evening," in The Portable Plateau in 1997. Photos of Frank Stanford by the widow accompanied her essays in both publications. Also in 1997, ConjunctionsConjunctions
Conjunctions, is a biannual American literary journal based at Bard College. It was founded in 1981 and is currently edited by Bradford Morrow....
published C. D. Wright’s essay, “Frank Stanford, Of The Mulberry Family: An Arkansas Epilogue.”
Stanford has also been written about in at least two novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
s — Steve Stern's The Moon & Ruben Shein and Forrest Gander
Forrest Gander
Forrest Gander is an American poet, essayist, novelist, critic, and translator.Born in the Mojave Desert, he was raised in Virginia where he attended The College of William and Mary, majoring in geology, a subject referenced frequently in both his poems and essays. He received an M.A...
's As A Friend — and two folk songs
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
— the Indigo Girls
Indigo Girls
The Indigo Girls are an American folk rock music duo, consisting of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers. They met in elementary school and began performing together as high school students in Decatur, Georgia, part of the Atlanta metropolitan area...
' "Three Hits" and Lucinda Williams
Lucinda Williams
Lucinda Williams is an American rock, folk, blues and country music singer and songwriter. She recorded her first albums in 1978 and 1980 in a traditional country and blues style and received very little attention from radio, the media, or the public. In 1988, she released her self-titled album,...
' "Pineola;" the latter is a eulogy of sorts for Stanford, who was a family friend of the Williamses.
Stanford's impact on poetry was profound and lasting, and celebrations of his work frequently take place. A July 1997 tribute to Stanford in Fayetteville
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Fayetteville is the county seat of Washington County, and the third largest city in Arkansas. The city is centrally located within the county and is home to the University of Arkansas. Fayetteville is also deep in the Boston Mountains, a subset of The Ozarks...
featured readings
Poetry reading
A poetry reading is a performance of poetry, normally given on a small stage in a café or bookstore, although poetry readings given by notable poets frequently are booked into larger venues to accommodate crowds...
of Stanford's poetry and a screening
Film screening
A film screening is the displaying of a motion picture or film, generally referring to a special showing as part of a film's production and release cycle...
of It Wasn't A Dream, It Was A Flood
It Wasn't A Dream, It Was A Flood
It Wasn't A Dream, It Was A Flood is a 1974 autobiographical, 16mm short film about poet Frank Stanford, made by Stanford and his publisher, Irv Broughton...
. All-night readings of The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You
The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You
The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You is a 15,283-line epic poem by the poet Frank Stanford. First published in 1977 as a 542-page book, the poem is visually characterized by its absence of stanzas and punctuation and is recognized as a complex, unusual work — at once both highly humorous...
have also occasionally occurred, such as one organized by Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
students in 1990 and another at New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
's Bowery Poetry Club
Bowery Poetry Club
The Bowery Poetry Club is a New York City poetry performance space founded by Bob Holman in 2002. Located at 308 Bowery, between Bleecker and Houston Streets in Manhattan's East Village, the BPC provides a home base for established and upcoming artists...
in April 2003. An October 2008 Frank Stanford Literary Festival in Fayetteville featured panel discussions of Stanford's work, a screening of It Wasn't A Dream, It Was A Flood
It Wasn't A Dream, It Was A Flood
It Wasn't A Dream, It Was A Flood is a 1974 autobiographical, 16mm short film about poet Frank Stanford, made by Stanford and his publisher, Irv Broughton...
, and an all-night reading of The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You
The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You
The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You is a 15,283-line epic poem by the poet Frank Stanford. First published in 1977 as a 542-page book, the poem is visually characterized by its absence of stanzas and punctuation and is recognized as a complex, unusual work — at once both highly humorous...
.
"The Light the Dead See" became a Poetry Out Loud
Poetry Out Loud
The Poetry Out Loud: Recitation Contest was created in 2006 by the National Endowment for the Arts and The Poetry Foundation. The contest was created to increase awareness in the art of performing poetry, with substantial cash prizes being awarded to schools that participated as well as...
selection in 2009.
Critical response
Despite continued interest in Stanford's work, his legacy has been largely overlooked in the canonizationWestern canon
The term Western canon denotes a canon of books and, more broadly, music and art that have been the most important and influential in shaping Western culture. As such, it includes the "greatest works of artistic merit." Such a canon is important to the theory of educational perennialism and the...
process of poetry anthologies and university literature courses. He is one of the least known of the significant voices of latter 20th century
20th century in literature
See also: 20th century in poetry, 19th century in literature, other events of the 20th century, 21st century in literature, list of years in literature.Literature of the 20th century refers to world literature produced during the 20th century...
American poetry
Poetry of the United States
American poetry, the poetry of the United States, arose first as efforts by colonists to add their voices to English poetry in the 17th century, well before the constitutional unification of the thirteen colonies...
, despite being widely published in many prominent magazines, including The American Poetry Review
The American Poetry Review
The American Poetry Review is an American poetry magazine printed every other month on tabloid-sized newsprint.Founded in 1972 by Stephen Berg, APR has always been published from editorial offices in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Berg is one of three editors, along with David Bonanno and Elizabeth...
, Chicago Review, FIELD
FIELD (magazine)
FIELD magazine is a twice-yearly literary magazine published by Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, and focusing on contemporary poetry and poetics....
, The Iowa Review
The Iowa Review
The Iowa Review is an American literary magazine that publishes fiction, poetry, essays, and reviews.Founded in 1970, this magazine is issued three times a year, during the months of April, August, and December. Originally, it was released on a quarterly basis. This frequency of publication lasted...
, Ironwood, kayak, The Massachusetts Review
The Massachusetts Review
The Massachusetts Review is a national literary journal founded in 1959 by a group of professors from Amherst College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst....
, The Mill Mountain Review, The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
, New American Review
The American Review
- 19th century :The American Review, alternatively known as The American Review: A Whig Journal and The American Whig Review, was a New York City-based periodical in the 19th century...
, The New York Quarterly
New York Quarterly
The New York Quarterly is a popular contemporary American poetry magazine. Established by William M. Packard in 1969, Rolling Stone Magazine has called the NYQ "the most important poetry magazine in America."- History :...
, Poetry Now, and Prairie Schooner.
However, Stanford's work has received significant critical praise. Alan Dugan
Alan Dugan
Alan Dugan was an American poet.His first volume Poems published in 1961 was a chosen by the Yale Series of Younger Poets and went on to win the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry....
— Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
winner and National Book Award
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
recipient — called Stanford “a brilliant poet, ample in his work,” comparing him to Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
. Poet Franz Wright
Franz Wright
-Background:Wright graduated from Oberlin College in 1977. He and his father James Wright are the only parent/child pair to have won the Pulitzer Prize in the same category....
called him "one of the great voices of death." Poet Lorenzo Thomas
Lorenzo Thomas (poet)
Lorenzo Thomas was an American poet and critic. He was born in the Republic of Panama and grew up in New York City, where his family immigrated in 1948.-Life:Thomas was a graduate of Queens College in New York...
called him "amazing ... a swamprat Rimbaud
Arthur Rimbaud
Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet. Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent...
, poet James Wright
James Wright (poet)
James Arlington Wright was an American poet.Wright first emerged on the literary scene in 1956 with The Green Wall, a collection of formalist verse that was awarded the prestigious Yale Younger Poets Prize. But by the early 1960s, Wright, increasingly influenced by the Spanish language...
referred to him as a "superbly accomplished and moving poet," and poet Richard Eberhart
Richard Eberhart
Richard Ghormley Eberhart was an American poet who published more than a dozen books of poetry and approximately twenty works in total...
praised the "strange grace of language in the poet’s remarkable, unforgettable body of work." Leon Stokesbury introduces The Light The Dead See by claiming that Stanford was, "at the time of his death, the best poet in America under the age of thirty-five." Other contemporaries remarked his “perfectly tuned” ears, the “remarkable acuity” of his “clear-cut imagery and spring-tight lines,” and his “remarkable talent” as a “testimony to [his] place in American letters.”
External links
- Frank Stanford bibliography at Verdant Press
- Frank Stanford at the Poetry Foundation
- Frank Stanford at the Academy of American Poets
- "The Life And Work of Frank Stanford" at Rain Taxi, Fall 1998
- "The Light the Dead See" by Frank Stanford : Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Project
- "The Long Goodbye" by Ben Ehrenreich at The Poetry Foundation, 1/2008