Frank Stanford

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Frank Stanford

Born August 1, 1948(1948-08-01)
Richton, Mississippi
Died June 3, 1978 (aged 29)
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Occupation Poet
Nationality American
Influences
Influenced

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.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Stanford's birthplace. Emery Memorial Home burned in 1964.
Stanford's birthplace. Emery Memorial Home burned in 1964.[1]

It wasn't a dream, it was a flood.

[edit] Early life and education

Frank Stanford was born Francis Gildart Smith on August 1, 1948 to widow Dorothy Margaret Smith at the Emery Memorial Home in Richton, Mississippi.[1][2][3][4][5][6] He was soon adopted by a single divorcée named Dorothy Gilbert Alter (1911-2000[7]), who was Firestone's first female manager.[1][5][8] In 1952, Gilbert married successful Memphis levee engineer[8] Albert Franklin Stanford (1884-1963[9]), who subsequently also adopted “Frankie” and his younger, adoptive sister, “Ruthie” (Bettina Ruth).[3] The children attended Sherwood Elementary School in Memphis, Tennessee, then junior high school in Mountain Home, Arkansas, where the family had moved in the late 1950s following A.F. Stanford's retirement.[2] The elder Stanford died during the poet's freshman year at Mountain Home High School.[2][10]

Subiaco Abbey and Academy, where Stanford attended prep school from 1964-1966.
Subiaco Abbey and Academy, where Stanford attended prep school from 1964-1966.

In 1964, as a sophomore,[10] Stanford entered Subiaco Academy — a boys' prep school run by Benedictine monks who provided a rigorous liberal arts and physical fitness curriculum — near Paris, Arkansas in the Ouachita Mountains. After graduating in May 1966,[10] he entered the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville in the fall,[11][12] first studying business, but soon switching to the College of Arts and Sciences.[11] In fall 1968,[13] 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.[11] Stanford soon became known throughout the Fayetteville literary community[3][8][14] and published poetry in the student literary magazine, Preview.[15] However, he left the university in 1970,[11] never earning a degree.[11][16]

[edit] Career

[edit] 1969-1972

Over the next several years, Stanford kept writing, publishing in a wide range of literary journals and magazines around the world.[17] In 1969, he met Linda Mencin, the daughter of a retired Naval Commander and World War II ace, through a mutual friend.[18][19] The two soon moved into a house in Fayetteville's Mt. Sequoyah neighborhood together,[3][14][19] Mencin working for the War on Poverty and Stanford writing poetry— oftentimes all day long.[18] 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[1][12] — handwriting the poem in pen on his and Mencin's dining room table.[18] 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[1] until late 1974[20] or 1975, by which time the book was finished.[21]

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.[22]

In 1970, he met Irv Broughton, the editor and publisher of Mill Mountain Press, at the Hollins Conference on Creative Writing and Cinema.[23][24][25][26] Broughton read Stanford's work at the conference and agreed to publish the poet's first book, The Singing Knives.[25] Five of Stanford's poems appeared in The Mill Mountain Review later that year,[27] and in 1971, The Singing Knives was published as a limited edition chapbook.[24][25][22] That summer,[12] Stanford and Mencin married, but, after having lived together for two years, Mencin left the poet after only three months of marriage.[18]

The poet spent much of 1972 traveling through the South and New England with Broughton, a communications teacher and filmmaker.[24] Together, the two interviewed and filmed poets/writers Richard Eberhart, Malcolm Cowley, and John Crowe Ransom.[24] (These interviews appear in The Writer’s Mind: Interviews With American Authors, a three-volume set.[28]) Broughton tutored Stanford in the technical aspects of camera work, and the poet developed an interest in filmmaking.[24] Moreover, he briefly lived in New York City,[1][14] if perhaps for merely a few weeks,[21] but only, he would later write, "to go to the movies."[29] 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.[1][14]

[edit] 1973-1976

Frank Stanford, 1973, shooting footage for It Wasn't A Dream, It Was A Flood.
Frank Stanford, 1973, shooting footage for It Wasn't A Dream, It Was A Flood.

In March 1973 in Neosho, Missouri, on a weekend away from Eureka Springs, Stanford met painter Ginny Crouch,[30] and they soon began living together, settling first in a cabin on the White River near Eureka Springs and later in a house near Rogers, Arkansas on Beaver Lake,[30] merely a few miles from Mencin's parents.[18] Stanford and Crouch married in October 1974[30] while living on Beaver Lake; later, the couple moved to the Crouch family's farm in southern Missouri.[8][14] For several years, Stanford meagerly supported himself and his second wife by working as an unlicensed land surveyor.[1][2][31] Broughton and Stanford made a 25-minute documentary about Stanford's work and life — filmed in Arkansas and Mississippi — 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.[24][32][33][34]

Frank Stanford's rare signature, from the title page of a signed copy of Shade (1975).
Frank Stanford's rare signature,[35] from the title page of a signed copy of Shade (1975).[36]

Based in Washington, Broughton received manuscripts from Stanford, sometimes transcribing additional poems via telephone from him in Arkansas, Missouri, and the East Coast.[23][24] 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. Field Talk, Shade (which included four line drawings by Ginny Stanford),[30][36] and Arkansas Bench Stone were published in 1975. Perhaps the strongest of the chapbooks, Constant Stranger, was released the following year.

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.[37]

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.[8] 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;[1][2][38] he said that his purpose with the press was to "reclaim the landscape of American poetry."[39] The first Lost Roads title was Wright’s Room Rented By A Single Woman in 1977.[38][40] Lost Roads would issue twelve titles under Stanford's direction.[16]

The cover of the 1st edition of Stanford's magnum opus, The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You (1977).
The cover of the 1st edition of Stanford's magnum opus, The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You (1977).

[edit] 1977-1978

[edit] The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You

1977 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)[41] settled at 542 pages[16] (383 pages in the second, 2000, edition) and 15,283 lines.[42] 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."[41] The poem, perhaps surprisingly, has yet to "explode," but has achieved almost mythic status in certain circles.

[edit] Final months and days

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[43][44]) more often than had seemed usual.[31] Stanford spent his last two and a half weeks in New Orleans before returning to Fayetteville on June 3rd.[45] In New Orleans, he wrote a suicide note, which included a will.[45] On June 3rd, Stanford's friend, Sherman Morgan,[46] met him at Fayetteville's Drake Field and drove him from the airport to his home at 705 Jackson Drive.[47][48]

[edit] Death

Stanford's grave in St. Benedict's Cemetery at Subiaco, Arkansas.
Stanford's grave in St. Benedict's Cemetery at Subiaco, Arkansas.

On the Saturday evening of June 3, 1978, Stanford took his own life in his home in Fayetteville.[1][49][48] In her essay, "Death In The Cool Evening," widow Ginny Stanford notes that her husband had committed adultery.[50] Following an argument about the matter, Stanford retreated to his bedroom, and moments later, gunshots were heard: Stanford had thrice shot himself in the heart with a .22-caliber target pistol.[1][48][50][51] Both Ginny Stanford and the poet's lover, C.D. Wright, were in the house (in different rooms) at the time of his death.[48][52] Stanford's funeral was held on Tuesday, June 6 at 1 p.m. at Subiaco Abbey Church;[48] 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 the poet's peers and others have suggested that he may have intended to die before the age of 30.[53] Furthermore, Father Fuhrmann, who had met with Stanford shortly before his death, feels that the poet had "a lot on his mind,"[31] and Wright and Ginny Stanford reported that the poet was depressed and withdrawn on the day of his suicide.[48] Stanford had also spent time at the Arkansas State Hospital (the state psychiatric hospital) in Little Rock in 1972[1][18] and may have had prior suicide attempts.[1][54]

[edit] Legacy

Frank Stanford's legacy is one shrouded in (and perhaps tainted by) legend, mystification, and inaccuracies. Stanford frequently embellished his letters[1] and personal anecdotes,[26] 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 Broughton, as the founder of Mill Mountain Press.[25][55] 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 (390 km) away,[1][2][56] 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.[25][56][57] It should be noted, though, that many inaccuracies surrounding Stanford's legacy are result of Stanford's own self-mythology, his own fabrications.

The cover of Crib Death (1978), published shortly after Stanford's death.
The cover of Crib Death (1978), published shortly after Stanford's death.

[edit] Posthumous works

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.[58]

Ironwood Press published Stanford's chapbook, Crib Death, in 1978, shortly after the poet's death. Lost Roads, 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,[59] the press released a collection of Stanford's short fiction, titled Conditions Uncertain And Likely To Pass Away. A 111-page 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.[57] Furthermore, much of Stanford's work is as yet unpublished,[14][16][33] including the manuscripts: The Flour The Dead Man Brings To The Wedding and The Last Panther In The Ozarks (which combine to make one manuscript), Automatic Co-Pilot,[2] Plain Songs (after Jean Follain), and Wounds, among others.[60]

[edit] 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 edition chapbooks, 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. On February 1, 2008, Lost Roads reissued The Singing Knives and You.

[edit] Reception

Frank Stanford's work has been described as surrealistic tall tales— poems of wild embellishment with recurring characters in an imaginary landscape, drawn from his childhood in the Mississippi Delta and the Ozark mountains.

[edit] Cultural response

Stanford has been written about in at least two folk songs: the Indigo Girls' "Three Hits" and Lucinda Williams' "Pineola."[61][62]

Ginny Stanford's essay, "Death In The Cool Evening" (1997), in The Portable Plateau.
Ginny Stanford's essay, "Death In The Cool Evening" (1997), in The Portable Plateau.[50]

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,[63] and its companion piece of sorts, "Death In The Cool Evening," in The Portable Plateau in 1997.[50] Photos of Frank Stanford by the widow accompanied her essays in both publications. Also in 1997, Conjunctions published C.D. Wright’s essay, “Frank Stanford, Of The Mulberry Family: An Arkansas Epilogue.”[64]

Stanford had a profound impact on regional poets, and 1997 saw significant homegrown activity in Arkansas and Missouri. A tribute to Stanford on July 26, 1997 featured readings of Stanford's poetry and a screening of It Wasn't A Dream, It Was A Flood at Vox Anima Artspace, a Mountain Street gallery in Fayetteville.[65] Along with "Death In The Cool Evening," The Portable Plateau reprinted four of Stanford's poems and an essay recounting the return of Stanford's sister, Ruth, to Fayetteville for the July tribute.[66]

In April 2003, New York's Bowery Poetry Club held an all-night reading of The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You.[67]

[edit] Critical response

Stanford's work has also received 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.[39] Poet Franz Wright called him "one of the great voices of death"[1] and, at a 2004 reading, dedicated a poem to Stanford, commenting that he had followed Stanford's poetry in publications in the 1970s.[68][69] Poet Lorenzo Thomas called him "amazing ... a swamprat Rimbaud,[52] 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."[69] 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."[57] His contemporaries remarked his “perfectly tuned” ears,[70] the “remarkable acuity” of his “clear-cut imagery and spring-tight lines,”[71] and his “remarkable talent” as a “testimony to [his] place in American letters.”[72]

However, Stanford's legacy has been largely overlooked in the canonization process of poetry anthologies and university literature courses. He is one of the least known of the significant voices of American poetry of the 1970s, yet in his day he was widely published in many prominent magazines, including American Poetry Review,[73] Chicago Review,[74] FIELD,[75] The Iowa Review,[76] Ironwood,[77] kayak,[78] The Massachusetts Review,[79] The Mill Mountain Review,[27] The Nation,[80] New American Review,[81] The New York Quarterly,[82] Poetry Now,[83] and Prairie Schooner.[84][85]

[edit] Bibliography

  • The Singing Knives (Mill Mountain Press, 1971;[22] Lost Roads, 1979, 2008)
  • Ladies From Hell (Mill Mountain Press, 1974)
  • Field Talk (Mill Mountain Press, 1975)
  • Shade (Mill Mountain Press, 1975[36])
  • Arkansas Bench Stone (Mill Mountain Press, 1975)
  • Constant Stranger (Mill Mountain Press, 1976)
  • The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You (Mill Mountain Press/Lost Roads, 1977;[42] Lost Roads, 2000)
  • Crib Death (Ironwood Press, 1978)
  • You (Lost Roads, 1979, 2008)
  • Conditions Uncertain And Likely To Pass Away (Lost Roads, 1990[59])
  • The Light The Dead See: Selected Poems of Frank Stanford (University of Arkansas Press, 1991)

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Ehrenreich, Ben. "The Long Goodbye", The Poetry Foundation, 2008.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Wright, C.D. "Frank Stanford: Blue Yodel Of A Wayfaring Stranger," Oxford American, Issue 52, pp 98-105. Winter 2006.
  3. ^ a b c d Ruth (Stanford) Rogers in Fayetteville, AR, July 26, 1997.
  4. ^ Stanford's niece, Carrie Rogers, by email on June 2, 2005.
  5. ^ a b Eva Johnson by email on February 21, 2008. Johnson was adopted through the Emery Home and now facilitates Emery reunions. According to Johnson, the Stanford children grew up in Greenville through 1952. Johnson believes it was her adoptive grandmother, a Greenville attorney who handled adoptions for the Emery Home, who handled the adoptions of Stanford in 1948 and, a year later, his sister.
  6. ^ Frank Stanford at the Social Security Death Index. Confirms August 1, 1948 birth.
  7. ^ Dorothy Stanford at the Social Security Death Index.
  8. ^ a b c d e Stanford, Frank. The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You, biographical note and C.D. Wright's preface. No place given: Lost Roads no. 50, 2000. ISBN 9780918786500.
  9. ^ Albert Stanford at the Social Security Death Index.
  10. ^ a b c Subiaco Academy records, Registrar's office. Accessed by Registrar Lou Trusty at Subiaco Academy on February 15, 2008. Stanford graduated from Subiaco on May 27, 1966.
  11. ^ a b c d e University of Arkansas records, Registrar's office. Accessed by Alexis Leppich at the Registrar's office on February 26, 2008. Leppich confirmed that Stanford began in fall 1966 (as opposed to the commonly misprinted 1967) in the College of Business (not Engineering, which is most commonly printed) and later switched to the College of Arts and Sciences. Leppich confirmed that Stanford took only undergraduate courses through fall 1968 and that his first graduate course was in spring 1969 (as opposed to commonly misprinted dates of 1968 or 1967). Leppich also confirmed that Stanford took classes in 1970 but not 1971 (as opposed to common misprints of Stanford dropping out in 1969 or 1971 [this corresponds to Leon Stokesbury's comments; see footnote for phone conversation with Stokesbury on February 25, 2008]), and Leppich confirmed that Stanford never received a degree.
  12. ^ a b c Stanford's best friend, Bill Willett, in Mountain Home, AR by phone on February 20, 2008. Re: Stanford starting college in fall 1966, some sources have misprinted as 1967, but Willett confirmed 1966; Willett and Stanford lived together and joined the same fraternity together (they dropped out together shortly thereafter) that fall. Re: summer 1971 marriage to Mencin, Willett is sure that the wedding was in either July or August. Re: Stanford working on Battlefield as a teenager, Bill believes Stanford worked on the book during their freshman year at the University of Arkansas and that he had started it at Subiaco if not before.
  13. ^ Leon Stokesbury in Atlanta, GA by phone on February 25, 2008. Re: Stanford joining the graduate writing workshop, Stokesbury is confident that Stanford's first semester in the workshop was spring 1969. Stokesbury is also confident that Stanford dropped out in fall 1970 (not 1969 or 1971). Re: publication date of The Singing Knives, Stokesbury said that he was in Fayetteville in 1972 until August and left for a couple of months; when he returned in November, the book had appeared on the scene. When asked why Stanford would have published the book in 1972 with a date of 1971, Stokesbury commented that Stanford never claimed to be older than he was, only younger.
  14. ^ a b c d e f Wright, C.D. Epilogue, The Singing Knives (Lost Roads,1979). Re: unpublished manuscripts, Wright's epilogue notes the existence of fifty complete manuscripts of poetry, short fiction, screenplays, and essays.
  15. ^ Stanford's poetry in three issues. 1) Stokesbury, Leon, ed. Preview. 1968-1969; 2) Stokesbury, Leon, ed. Preview: The Literature. 1970; 3) Stanford, Frank, ed. Preview: Eight Poets. 1971. College of Arts and Sciences, University of Arkansas. Stanford was Associate Editor for the 1970 issue and Editor for the 1971 issue.
  16. ^ a b c d Wright, C.D. "Frank Stanford", The Before Columbus Poetry Anthology. W. W. Norton. 1991.
  17. ^ By 1975, Stanford's work had appeared in no less than the following international publications: The Far Point (Canada), The West Coast Review (Canada), The Hunchback In The Park (Wales), Ghost Ship (Ireland), The Circular Ruins (Scotland), La Bell Et La Bete (France), La Notte (Italy), Poetry: Australia (Sydney, Australia), and Edge (New Zealand).
  18. ^ a b c d e f The former Linda Mencin in Austin, TX by phone on February 22, 2008. Mencin's father is the late Adolph Mencin (1916-1998) of Rogers, AR. Re: common misprints of her mother being a "society lady" or "socialite," she said this was untrue, that her mother was "glamorous," but raised on a farm and not a "society lady."
  19. ^ a b The former Linda Mencin in Austin, TX by phone on February 23, 2008. Re: Stanford and Mencin's introduction, they met through Keith Mills (Mencin's boyfriend at the time), whom Stanford knew from the university.
  20. ^ Battlefield wasn't complete before September 1974 because Stanford mentioned in a September 1974 letter to Alan Dugan that he was "going to hire a typist to do a [sic] 800-1000 page manuscript ... of which Dugan had seen "ahout [sic] 500 pages."
  21. ^ a b C.D. Wright by email on February 17, 2008.
  22. ^ a b c Stanford, Frank. The Singing Knives. Seattle, WA: Mill Mountain Press. 1971. ISBN 0912350504. "The Minnow" reprinted here with permission from C.D. Wright, rights holder. Re: publication date, some sources have listed book's publication date as 1972 (such as stated on the copyright page in the 2008 reprint; also see footnote for phone conversation with Leon Stokesbury on February 25, 2008), but book itself lists 1971.
  23. ^ a b Irv Broughton at his home in Spokane, WA, April 2001.
  24. ^ a b c d e f g Irv Broughton in Spokane, Washington by phone on February 18, 2008. Re: writers interviewed, misprints have included others, but Broughton clarified that, with Stanford, only Eberhart, Cowley, and Ransom were interviewed. Re: film festival, some sources have printed "West Coast Film Festival," but Irv clarified, confirming Northwest Film & Video Festival; he also corrected that the award was not for "experimental filmmaking," as Rain Taxi misprinted.
  25. ^ a b c d e Broughton, Irv. "Tracing The Tale" (Letters To The Editor), Poets & Writers, September 2002.
  26. ^ a b C. D. Wright by letter postmarked June 2, 1998.
  27. ^ a b Stanford's poetry in three issues. The Mill Mountain Review, Vol. 1, No. 2; 1970. Vol. 1, No. 3; 1971. Vol. 1, No. 4; 1971. Seattle, WA: Mill Mountain Press.
  28. ^ Broughton, Irv, ed. The Writer's Mind: Interviews With American Authors. 3 vols. Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press. 1989-90.
  29. ^ Stanford, Frank. "Blue Yodel Of The Desperado." Constant Stranger, p 29. Seattle, WA: Mill Mountain Press. 1976.
  30. ^ a b c d Ginny Stanford by email on March 4, 2008. Stanford and Crouch met on the morning of March 3, 1973 in Neosho, Missouri at mutual friend Robert Carter's farmhouse. Re: Shade's publication date, Ginny Stanford confirmed that the 1975 "Second Edition" is, in fact, the first edition (she couldn't recall Stanford's reason for publishing the book with the discrepency).
  31. ^ a b c Father Nicholas Fuhrmann at Subiaco Abbey and Academy by phone on February 15, 2008. Re: his last meeting with Stanford, Fuhrmann remembered it as being approximately ten days before Stanford died, but Stanford was in New Orleans for his last two and a half weeks, so the Stanford/Fuhrmann meeting was probably at least a few weeks before his death.
  32. ^ Ted Hurliman at the Northwest Film Center (which runs the Northwest Film & Video Festival) in Portland, OR by phone on February 21, 2008. Accessing records, Hurliman confirmed that the film screened at the 1975 festival (as opposed to the commonly misprinted "1974"), that the film was 25 minutes on 16 mm, that the director was listed as Irv Brougton, that the description was "A dreamlike documentary about poet Frank Stanford, filmed in Arkansas and Mississippi," and that the film won "one of the Judge's Awards."
  33. ^ a b Bachar, Greg. "It Wasn't A Dream, It Was A Flood: Constant Stranger", Rain Taxi, Vol. 3, No. 3. Fall 1998.
  34. ^ The film includes possibly the only recording of Stanford reading his work, his poem “Linger” from Ladies From Hell (Mill Mountain Press, 1974).
  35. ^ Derringer Books, San Francisco: "Stanford's signature is almost unheard of."
  36. ^ a b c Stanford, Frank. Shade. Seattle, WA: Mill Mountain Press. Limited Edition. Second Edition. 1975. The publication date of Shade is a source of much confusion. The book's title page notes 1975, the copyright page reads "Copyright 1973, 1975 by Frank Stanford," "Second Edition," and the book's front matter lists "SHADE 1973" under "Books By Frank Stanford." However, the supposed 1973 first edition was never published (see footnote for Ginny Stanford's email of March 4, 2008), the upshot being that the "Second Edition" is, in actuality, the first edition.
  37. ^ Stanford, Frank. Ladies From Hell. Seattle, WA: Mill Mountain Press. 1974. "Death In The Cool Evening" reprinted here with permission from Ginny Stanford, rights holder.
  38. ^ a b Wright, C.D. "Finishing The First", Poets & Writers, December 2006.
  39. ^ a b Hall, R.C. "Death Of A Major Voice In Arkansas", The Arkansas Times, December 1978.
  40. ^ DuVal, John. C.D. Wright (1949-), The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History And Culture, November 26, 2007.
  41. ^ a b Stanford, Frank. "Letter to David Walker", April 1, 1974. The Alsop Review. The David Walker with whom Stanford corresponded is not the David Walker of FIELD, contrary to prior misprints, but, rather, a former co-editor of Edge.
  42. ^ a b Stanford, Frank. The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You. Fayetteville, AR: Mill Mountain/Lost Roads nos. 7-12, 1977. ISBN 0-918786-13-4. Re: publication date, C.D. Wright notes in her preface for the 2000 edition that, at the time of Stanford's death, the book was "printed but not bound"; as with other discrepancies in Stanford's bibliography, though, official date of publication is taken from book's title/copyright pages. Re: line count, some sources have incorrectly labeled the 15,283-line poem (as evident in the 2000 edition) as being over 20,000 lines (or over 21,000 lines) in the first edition (which suggests that the two texts are actually different), but the seemingly longer line count in the 1977 edition is merely resultant of the paper's octavo size, effecting many lengthy lines to be necessarily broken with indents employed.
  43. ^ Interview with Dorothy Stanford in 1998 (Dorothy Stanford died in 2000). Dorothy Stanford worked as office manager of Coury House, the retreat center at Subiaco Abbey.
  44. ^ Donna Forst, Coury House, by phone February 23, 2008.
  45. ^ a b Ginny Stanford by email on March 5, 2008. Re: Stanford's "will/suicide note," Ginny Stanford noted that the first version was written on May 22. Re: Stanford's arrival date in New Orleans, Ginny Stanford is pretty sure that Stanford left Fayetteville for New Orleans on May 17 (in conversation with Ralph Adamo by phone on February 24, 2008, Adamo was confident that Stanford had been in New Orleans for at least his last two weeks [and felt it was closer to three]; in conversation with C.D. Wright by phone on March 4, 2008, she mentioned the visit to be "two weeks"). The trip's length has been misprinted in at least one publication as being one week in length.
  46. ^ Sherman Morgan was proprietor of Sherman's — a bar frequented by Stanford (see Ehrenreich's article) in Tin Cup (Fayetteville's small black enclave, also known locally as "the hollow").
  47. ^ Sherman Morgan's friend, John Peel, in Fayetteville, AR by phone on February 21, 2008 (Sherman Morgan died in 2001).
  48. ^ a b c d e f Staff reports. "Gunshot Wounds Fatal", Northwest Arkansas Times, June 5, 1978. Police reported that Stanford was dead on their arrival to the home at 7:28 p.m.; Deputy Coroner Hugh Huppert subsequently ruled the death a suicide.
  49. ^ Frank Stanford, Academy of American Poets, 2008.
  50. ^ a b c d Stanford, Ginny. "Death In The Cool Evening", The Portable Plateau, 1:1. Joplin, Missouri: Ridgerunner Press. 1997; The Alsop Review (reprint). The essay as published in The Portable Plateau differs by two additional sentences and Frank Stanford’s poem, “Death In The Cool Evening,” included as the epilogue.
  51. ^ Stanford’s bio at the Alsop Review reports a “.22 revolver.” At least three other accounts describe a pistol: “The Long Goodbye” (Poetry Foundation, 2008) refers to a “.22-caliber target pistol”; in a 1997 essay, C. D. Wright describes a "target pistol"; newspaper accounts published at the time also referred to a “.22 caliber pistol.” Thus, information in Alsop Review is likely a misprint.
  52. ^ a b Thomas, Lorenzo. "Finders, Losers: Frank Stanford's Song Of The South", January 2, 1979.
  53. ^ Mencin, Justin Caldwell (a poet contemporary) by phone on February 28, 2008, and Stokesbury (among others) have stated that they believe this to be a potential motive.
  54. ^ The earnestness of the suicide attempts cited in Ehrenreich's article is questionable; it's possible that Stanford may have been drunk, joking, or merely expounding on his own mythology.
  55. ^ Holman, Bob. "Trace of a Tale: C. D. Wright: An Investigative Poem", Poets & Writers Magazine, May 2002.
  56. ^ a b Stanford, Frank. Crib Death. Kensington, CA: Ironwood Press. 1978.
  57. ^ a b c Stanford, Frank. The Light The Dead See: Selected Poems of Frank Stanford, p ix. Leon Stokesbury, ed. Fayetteville, AR: The University of Arkansas Press. 1991.
  58. ^ Stanford, Frank. You. Fayetteville, AR: Lost Roads. 1979. ISBN 0918786169. No place given: Lost Roads. 2008. ISBN 0918786568. "Instead" reprinted here with permission from C.D. Wright, rights holder.
  59. ^ a b Stanford, Frank. Conditions Uncertain And Likely To Pass Away. Providence, RI: Lost Roads no. 37, 1990. ISBN 0918786428. Re: date of publication, some sources list "1991" (date on book's back cover), but title page and copyright page print 1990.
  60. ^ C.D. Wright by email on February 18, 2008.
  61. ^ Academy of American Poets. "Miller & Lucinda Williams: All in the Family", Poets.org, 2004. Williams' father is Miller Williams, a professor of creative writing at the University of Arkansas.
  62. ^ Buford, Bill. "Delta Nights", The New Yorker, June 5, 2000.
  63. ^ Stanford, Ginny. "Requiem: A Fragment," The New Orleans Review. New Orleans, LA: Loyola University, 1994.
  64. ^ Wright, C.D. “Frank Stanford, Of the Mulberry Family: An Arkansas Epilogue,” Conjunctions, 29. Bard College, 1997.
  65. ^ Formerly at 7 E. Mountain St., Fayetteville, AR. Leilani Law, Curator, with Brent Long coordinating the tribute.
  66. ^ Hoerman, Michael. "Frank Stanford’s Lost Roads", The Portable Plateau, 1:1, Summer 1997.
  67. ^ Collins, Billy. “The Ballad of the Ballad, Poetry's Bearer of Bad News” The New York Times. April 11, 2003.
  68. ^ Poetry Reading by Franz Wright. Concord Poetry Center, 40 Stow Street, Concord, MA. October 16, 2004.
  69. ^ a b Cuddihy, Michael, ed. The Ironwood Review, Issue 17, pp 105, 137. Tuscon, AZ. 1981.
  70. ^ Lux, Thomas. "'Brother Leo Told Me The Bell Was Ringing': On Frank Stanford," FIELD, Issue 52, pp 49-55. Oberlin, OH. 1979.
  71. ^ Upton, Lee. Review of The Light The Dead See, Mid-American Review, Issue 13.1-2, pp 207-10. Bowling Green State University; Bowling Green, OH. 1991.
  72. ^ Bradley, John. Review of The Light The Dead See, The Bloomsbury Review, p 30, July/August 1991.
  73. ^ Stanford's poetry in two issues. American Poetry Review, Vol. 4, No. 2; 1975. Vol. 8, No. 2; 1979. Philadelphia, PA: American Poetry Review.
  74. ^ Chicago Review, Vol. 23, No. 1. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago. 1971.
  75. ^ Stanford's poetry in three issues. FIELD, Issue 10, Spring 1974; Issue 11, August 1974; Issue 12, Spring 1975. Oberlin, OH: Oberlin College.
  76. ^ Stanford's poetry in three issues. The Iowa Review, Vol. 3, No. 3; Summer 1972. Vol. 5, No. 2; Spring 1974. Vol. 5, No. 4; Spring 1974. Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa.
  77. ^ Stanford's poetry in three issues while living. Cuddihy, Michael, ed. Ironwood, Issue 4, 1974; Issue 6, 1975; Issue 9, Spring 1977. Tuscon: Ironwood Press.
  78. ^ Hitchcock, George, ed. kayak, Issue 26. Santa Cruz, CA: Kayak Books. 1971.
  79. ^ The Massachusetts Review Vol. xiii, No. 4. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts. August 1972.
  80. ^ The Nation, Vol. 213, No. 10. New York: The Nation Associates, Inc. 1971.
  81. ^ Solotaroff, Theodore, ed. New American Review, No. 11. New York: Simon & Schuster. 1971.
  82. ^ Packard, William, ed. The New York Quarterly, Issue 15. Summer 1973. New York: New York Quarterly Poetry Review Foundation. 1973.
  83. ^ Poetry Now, Vol. 1, No. 2. 1975.
  84. ^ Prairie Schooner, Vol. 48, No. 3. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. 1974.
  85. ^ Frank Stanford bibliography, Verdant Press, 2008.

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