The Light the Dead See
Product ID: 22029228
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Between 1972, when he published his first book, The Signing Knives , and 1978, when he died at the age of twenty-nine, Frank Stanford published seven volumes of poetry. Within a year of his death, two posthumous collections were published. At the time of this death, as Leon Stokesbury asserts in his introduction, “Stanford was the best poet in America under the age of thirty-five.” The Light the Dead See collects the best work from those nine volumes and six previously unpublished poems. In the earlier poems, Stanford creates a world where he could keep childhood alive, deny time and mutability, and place a version of himself at the center of great myth and drama. Later, the denial of time and mutability gives way to an obsessive and familiar confrontation with death. Although Stanford paid an enormous price for his growing familiarity with Death as a presence, the direct address to that presence is a source of much of the striking originality and stunning power in the poetry. Review: A poet who deserves to be better known - Frank Stanford was born in Mississippi in 1948, and adopted the day he was born. Four years later, his mother married A.F. Stanford, a much older contractor in Memphis. Until his death eight years later, Stanford raised the young boy as his own. When he was 21, Frank discovered that his mother had adopted him – he had always believed, or been led to believe, that she was his birth mother. We can smile at William Wordsworth’s line “The Child is father of the Man,” but poet Frank Stanford embodied it in both his life and his poetry. I discovered Stanford while reading poet Leon Stokesbury’s most recent collection “You are Here.” Stokesbury, who teaches in the creative writing program at Georgia State University, received his M.A. and MFA degrees from the University of Arkansas, and there is his connection to Stanford. Stanford and his mother moved to Arkansas after his stepfather’s death, and in 1966 he entered the University of Arkansas. He was enrolled in the graduate poetry workshop at the university at the same time Stokesbury was in the MFA program. “Almost from the beginning there was a unique voice in the poems Stanford submitted to the workshop,” Stokesbury writes in the introduction to “The Light the Dead See: Selected Poems of Frank Stanford” edited by Stokesbury and published in 1991. Between Stanford’s death in 1978 and a comprehensive collection of his poetry published in 2015, the Stokesbury-edited work was the only extended publication of Stanford’s poems. What Stokesbury did was select poem from each of the seven collections of poetry Stanford published from 1971 to 1978 (think about that, for a moment – seven collections in seven years). Most of Stanford’s poems were still unpublished at the time of his death, and Stokesbury did manage to include a few. The poems of “The Light the Dead See” are, simply put, rather astonishing. They tell stories. They are filled with striking imagery. I find many of them so memorable as to be haunting. As I read the poems I kept thinking of Flannery O’Connor and her Southern vision of the odd, the misfits, and the strange. Stanford’s images and stories demand attention and engagement. His subject was mostly childhood, and particularly the childhood spent growing up in a Southern community at a time when the South was on the brink of tumultuous change that hadn’t yet happened. He writes of childhood memories viewed through an adult lens, memories recalled with a grasp that is both fond and loving but also understanding and at times shocking. Much of his poetry is about growing up in the 1950s South. Hidden Water A girl was in a wheelchair on her porch And wasps were swarming in the cornice She had just washed her hair When she took it down she combed it She could see Just like I could The one star under the rafter Quivering like a knife in the creek She was thin And she made me think Of music singing to itself Like someone putting a dulcimer in a case And walking off with a stranger To lie down and drink in the dark Stanford ‘s personal life was rather tumultuous, Stokesbury notes. He married young, divorced, married a second time to painter Ginny Crouch. He was publishing poems and collections all through his 20s, and even joined with poet C.D. Wright (who died earlier this year) in launching a firm, Lost Roads Publishing, devoted to poetry. His biography reads like a man burning the candle at both ends, and, alas, that is apparently what happened. He died just short of his 30th birthday. Stanford killed himself with three gunshot wounds to the chest. Stokesbury speculates that the reason was something of a poetical inspiration crisis – doubts that he had anything left in him to write about. This poem is perhaps his best known, obviously for how it can be read as a foreshadowing of his death. The Light the Dead See There are many people who come back After the doctor has smoothed the sheet Around their body And left the room to make his call. They die but they live. They are called the dead who lived through their deaths, And among my people They are considered wise and honest. They float out of their bodies And light on the ceiling like a moth, Watching the efforts of everyone around them. The voices and the images of the living Fade away. A roar sucks them under The wheels of a darkness without pain. Off in the distance There is someone Like a signalman swinging a lantern. The light grows, a white flower. It becomes very intense, like music. They see the faces of those they loved, The truly dead who speak kindly. They see their father sitting in a field. The harvest is over and his cane chair is mended. There is a towel around his neck, The odor of bay rum. Then they see their mother Standing behind him with a pair of shears. The wind is blowing. She is cutting his hair. The dead have told these stories To the living. Largely forgotten except for Stokesbury’s book, Stanford is enjoying something of a revival. Last year, “The Collected Poems of Frank Stanford” was published, edited by Michael Wiegers. It includes both published and unpublished poems. “The Light the Dead See” is a fine introduction to the larger and more recent collection. Stanford deserves to be better known. He wrote powerful, memorable poems. Review: Poetry for people who hate poetry - Which is not to say that there's no craft here. Stanford knew exactly what he was doing every time he picked up a pen. What I mean is that there's no pretense here. All of Stanfords poetry is like one long scream. This is a man with a lot to say about a lot of things, and he'll change the way you think about poetry. He doesn't have time for flowery verbiage, and he doesn't care what you think about it. This is a man burning from the inside. This collection is a good primer, even if it does play it a bit safe. Still, any Stanford in print is a blessing, and the first two poems are worth 10 times the price of the book. If you're looking for love sonnets, they're not here. If you're looking for Rod McKuen banality, it's not here, either. This is a small anthology of a man willing to go so far into the darkness that life couldn't contain him. The words are simple. The ideas require a bit more wrestling with. It's worth the fight.
| Best Sellers Rank | #113,534 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #474 in American Poetry (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.6 out of 5 stars 31 Reviews |
G**G
A poet who deserves to be better known
Frank Stanford was born in Mississippi in 1948, and adopted the day he was born. Four years later, his mother married A.F. Stanford, a much older contractor in Memphis. Until his death eight years later, Stanford raised the young boy as his own. When he was 21, Frank discovered that his mother had adopted him – he had always believed, or been led to believe, that she was his birth mother. We can smile at William Wordsworth’s line “The Child is father of the Man,” but poet Frank Stanford embodied it in both his life and his poetry. I discovered Stanford while reading poet Leon Stokesbury’s most recent collection “You are Here.” Stokesbury, who teaches in the creative writing program at Georgia State University, received his M.A. and MFA degrees from the University of Arkansas, and there is his connection to Stanford. Stanford and his mother moved to Arkansas after his stepfather’s death, and in 1966 he entered the University of Arkansas. He was enrolled in the graduate poetry workshop at the university at the same time Stokesbury was in the MFA program. “Almost from the beginning there was a unique voice in the poems Stanford submitted to the workshop,” Stokesbury writes in the introduction to “The Light the Dead See: Selected Poems of Frank Stanford” edited by Stokesbury and published in 1991. Between Stanford’s death in 1978 and a comprehensive collection of his poetry published in 2015, the Stokesbury-edited work was the only extended publication of Stanford’s poems. What Stokesbury did was select poem from each of the seven collections of poetry Stanford published from 1971 to 1978 (think about that, for a moment – seven collections in seven years). Most of Stanford’s poems were still unpublished at the time of his death, and Stokesbury did manage to include a few. The poems of “The Light the Dead See” are, simply put, rather astonishing. They tell stories. They are filled with striking imagery. I find many of them so memorable as to be haunting. As I read the poems I kept thinking of Flannery O’Connor and her Southern vision of the odd, the misfits, and the strange. Stanford’s images and stories demand attention and engagement. His subject was mostly childhood, and particularly the childhood spent growing up in a Southern community at a time when the South was on the brink of tumultuous change that hadn’t yet happened. He writes of childhood memories viewed through an adult lens, memories recalled with a grasp that is both fond and loving but also understanding and at times shocking. Much of his poetry is about growing up in the 1950s South. Hidden Water A girl was in a wheelchair on her porch And wasps were swarming in the cornice She had just washed her hair When she took it down she combed it She could see Just like I could The one star under the rafter Quivering like a knife in the creek She was thin And she made me think Of music singing to itself Like someone putting a dulcimer in a case And walking off with a stranger To lie down and drink in the dark Stanford ‘s personal life was rather tumultuous, Stokesbury notes. He married young, divorced, married a second time to painter Ginny Crouch. He was publishing poems and collections all through his 20s, and even joined with poet C.D. Wright (who died earlier this year) in launching a firm, Lost Roads Publishing, devoted to poetry. His biography reads like a man burning the candle at both ends, and, alas, that is apparently what happened. He died just short of his 30th birthday. Stanford killed himself with three gunshot wounds to the chest. Stokesbury speculates that the reason was something of a poetical inspiration crisis – doubts that he had anything left in him to write about. This poem is perhaps his best known, obviously for how it can be read as a foreshadowing of his death. The Light the Dead See There are many people who come back After the doctor has smoothed the sheet Around their body And left the room to make his call. They die but they live. They are called the dead who lived through their deaths, And among my people They are considered wise and honest. They float out of their bodies And light on the ceiling like a moth, Watching the efforts of everyone around them. The voices and the images of the living Fade away. A roar sucks them under The wheels of a darkness without pain. Off in the distance There is someone Like a signalman swinging a lantern. The light grows, a white flower. It becomes very intense, like music. They see the faces of those they loved, The truly dead who speak kindly. They see their father sitting in a field. The harvest is over and his cane chair is mended. There is a towel around his neck, The odor of bay rum. Then they see their mother Standing behind him with a pair of shears. The wind is blowing. She is cutting his hair. The dead have told these stories To the living. Largely forgotten except for Stokesbury’s book, Stanford is enjoying something of a revival. Last year, “The Collected Poems of Frank Stanford” was published, edited by Michael Wiegers. It includes both published and unpublished poems. “The Light the Dead See” is a fine introduction to the larger and more recent collection. Stanford deserves to be better known. He wrote powerful, memorable poems.
W**N
Poetry for people who hate poetry
Which is not to say that there's no craft here. Stanford knew exactly what he was doing every time he picked up a pen. What I mean is that there's no pretense here. All of Stanfords poetry is like one long scream. This is a man with a lot to say about a lot of things, and he'll change the way you think about poetry. He doesn't have time for flowery verbiage, and he doesn't care what you think about it. This is a man burning from the inside. This collection is a good primer, even if it does play it a bit safe. Still, any Stanford in print is a blessing, and the first two poems are worth 10 times the price of the book. If you're looking for love sonnets, they're not here. If you're looking for Rod McKuen banality, it's not here, either. This is a small anthology of a man willing to go so far into the darkness that life couldn't contain him. The words are simple. The ideas require a bit more wrestling with. It's worth the fight.
J**L
How the populace has run off the path
It's a sad world in which poetry has been sent to the nether regions, you know, those beyond even novels and other such "literature", but it's easy to understand. Most folks can't be trusted to read anything without the Oprah stamp or some fundamentalist's creepy okay. Books, well, alright,as long as they don't turn my kids gay or into sorcerers. Just make sure the movie comes along quickly, right? Poetry? Well, that's just sophomoric. No. But Frank Stanford, damn it all, given the slightest introduction to your world might change your worldview. Sensuality- he brings it. A genuine setting and a vibrant milieu? Check. Robust emotion? It's there, in droves. After all, the man killed himself with three (3!) pistol shots to the heart. Poetry, by all rights may well be dead in 21st century America, and that's as despicable as your Dan Brown reading habits, but Frank made the words righteous. Try it. You'll not be disappointed.
J**H
Some of the Best Poetry I've Read
Frank Stafford has a unique voice. I feel fortunate to have discovered him. His poetry infiltrates the hidden places of life. There is a dreamlike, surreal quality here. "The Light the Dead See" allows the reader to see through a window opened by the special and peculiar vision of a poet who deserves to be much better known.
B**P
Good.
Goodgoodgood.
A**R
More People Should Read Frank Stanford
If you're thinking about buying this book go for it. It is worth it. Most of his books are out of print but thankfully this book is available. If you like it check out Stanford's "The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You."
G**E
A Stunning vision of Death in everyday Life.
Unique in form and subject matter, Frank Stanford was a poet of great vision and power. While his verse may seem random and vulgar at first glance, The Light the Dead See stunned me with its familiarity with Death as a companion and friend. With this in mind, it seems no wonder that Stanford eventually felt compelled to take his own life. Stanford's poetry is without bounds. The imagery he puts forth concerning the backwaters of rural America gave me chills, not because it was frightening, but because it illustrated the truth about the often violent and arbitrary turns of chance rule the lives of many of us. This book is not to be missed. It could very well change the way you look at poetry.
L**N
Cut off to early.
Disorder; an attack on the mind. Not much makes sense. A sad end.
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