Frank Stanford

What About This: Collected Poems of Frank Stanford

Marc Notes: I don't believe in tame poetry. Poetry busts guts.-Frank Stanford. The poetry publishing event of the season, this six-hundred-plus page book highlights the arc of Frank Stanford's all-too-brief and incandescently brilliant career. Despite critical praise and near-mythic status as a poet, Frank Stanford's oeuvre has never fully been unified. The mystery and legend surrounding his life-and his suicide before the age of thirty-has made it nearly impossible to fully and accurately celebrate his body of work. Until now. This welcome and necessary volume includes hundreds of previously unpublished poems, a short story, an interview, and is richly illustrated with draft poems, photographs, and odd ephemera. As Dean Young writes in the Foreword to the book: Many of these poems seem as if they were written with a burnt stick. With blood in river mud... Frank Stanford, demonically prolific, approaches the poem not as an exercise of rhetoric or a puzzle of signifiers but as a man 'looking for his own tongue' in a knife-fight with a ghost. When It's After DarkI steal all the light bulbs and hide them like eggs in a basket going to some outlaw I put on the best I can find I cover them with a swatch of something that swells like a bite that bleeds green cloth that smells of a feed store but looks to of been worn I go over to nasty willy's bridge and throw them into the creek there in the shade I listen for them to make nests to escape agony and burst. Frank Stanford was born in Mississippi and worked as an unlicensed land surveyor. He published poetry, short fiction, and the epic 15,000-line poem The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You. In June 1978, he died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds. --; Provided by publisher. Brief Description: "'I don't believe in tame poetry. Poetry busts guts.'-Frank Stanford. The poetry publishing event of the season, this six-hundred-plus page book highlights the arc of Frank Stanford's all-too-brief and incandescently brilliant career. This volume includes hundreds of previously unpublished poems, a short story, an interview, and is richly illustrated with draft poems, photographs, and odd ephemera." --Publisher Marketing:"The big event in poetry for 2015 will likely be the long-awaited resurrection of Frank Stanford, a legendary badass from Arkansas, much of whose poetry has been unavailable since his suicide at the age of 29 in 1978... Stanford was a hell of a metaphor-maker and simile-slinger, and could cast a spell of extreme intensity with a flick of his wrist."--NPR.org"Highly recommended work from an American original."--"Library Journal, "starred review"I don't believe in tame poetry. . . . Poetry busts guts."--Frank Stanford"The" poetry publishing event of the season, this six-hundred-plus page book highlights the arc of Frank Stanford's all-too-brief and incandescently brilliant career. Despite critical praise and near-mythic status as a poet, Frank Stanford's oeuvre has never fully been unified. The mystery and legend surrounding his life--and his suicide before the age of thirty--has made it nearly impossible to fully and accurately celebrate his body of work. Until now. This welcome and necessary volume includes hundreds of previously unpublished poems, a short story, an interview, and is richly illustrated with draft poems, photographs, and odd ephemera. As Dean Young writes in the Foreword to the book: "Many of these poems seem as if they were written with a burnt stick. With blood in river mud... Frank Stanford, demonically prolific, approaches the poem not as an exercise of rhetoric or a puzzle of signifiers but as a man 'looking for his own tongue' in a knife-fight with a ghost."When It's After Dark"I stealall the light bulbsand hide them like eggsin a basketgoing to some outlawI put on the best I can findI cover them with a swatchof somethingthat swells like a bitethat bleeds greencloth that smellsof a feed storebut looksto of been wornI go over to nasty willy's bridgeand throw them into the creekthere in the shade I listenfor themto make nests to escapeagony and burst"Frank Stanford was born in Mississippi and worked as an unlicensed land surveyor. He published poetry, short fiction, and the epic 15,000-line poem "The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You." In June 1978, he died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds. Review Citations: Library Journal 03/01/2015 pg. 92 (EAN 9781556594687, Hardcover) - *Starred Review Publishers Weekly 03/16/2015 (EAN 9781556594687, Hardcover) - *Starred Review Contributor Bio:  Stanford, Frank Frank Stanford (August 1, 1948 - June 3, 1978) 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.