Hidden Water Limited Edition: The Definitive Frank Stanford Boxset
THE DEFINITIVE FRANK STANFORD COLLECTION.
A very special collaboration between Third Man Books and Copper Canyon Press, THE HIDDEN WATER LIMITED EDITION is a limited edition, multi-media set that includes two books: the 730+ page What About This (Copper Canyon), Third Man Books 200+ page Hidden Water, plus two broadsides reproducing original sketches by Stanford, and a custom notepad inspired by the workpad Stanford used at his job as a land surveyor.
Born in 1948, Frank Stanford was a prolific poet known for his originality and ingenuity. He has been dubbed “a swamp rat Rimbaud” by Lorenzo Thomas and “one of the great voices of death” by Franz Wright. He grew up in Mississippi, Tennessee, and then Arkansas, where he lived for most of his life and wrote many of his most powerful poems. Stanford died in 1978. He authored over ten books of poetry, including eight volumes in the last seven years of his life.
“The Mississippi-born, Memphis-bred poet once shot off a double-barreled shotgun in the middle of a party he’d thrown for Allen Ginsberg because he considered some of the guests to be ‘lightweights,’ his longtime friend Bill Willett recently recalled and added, ‘All the lightweights left.’ —The Oxford American
“What About This… introduces to a broader audience an important and original American poet — sensitive, death-haunted, surreal, carnal, dirt-flecked and deeply Southern — whose promise, only partly fulfilled, it hurts to contemplate. His poems flick on a heretofore unnoticed porch light in your mind.” —The New York Times
“Hidden Water offers a broad and beautiful collection of photographs, drawings, letters and drafts of poems with notes and edits scribbled in the poet’s own hand. It even features a partial inventory of Stanford’s record collection (John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Leadbelly) and a picture of the business card he used for his day job . . .And in the end, Stanford’s voice is as clear, plain and death-obsessed as ever: “I wandered I sang / I made promises to death and I kept them / so having done / with my work in this world / I dove into that pool. —The Houston Chronicle
“. . . 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
Silver Jews singer David Berman recorded a poem from Hidden Water for the Pitchfork website.
THE SPECIAL EDITION SET:
Features ALL of Stanford’s published work.
NOT AVAILABLE IN BOOKSTORES
Features unpublished poems, drafts, and never before seen photos.
Features unpublished correspondence between Stanford, Allen Ginsberg, Pulitzer Prize poet Alan Dugan, and others.
Features unseen artwork by Ginny Stanford.
Includes an appreciation by award winning author and Stanford’s friend Steve Stern.
Includes Stanford reciting his poem “The Boathouse.”
Author:
Frank Stanford
Born in 1948, Frank Stanford was a prolific poet known for his originality and ingenuity. He has been dubbed “a swamprat Rimbaud” by Lorenzo Thomas and “one of the great voices of death” by Franz Wright. He grew up in Mississippi, Tennessee, and then Arkansas, where he lived for most of his life and wrote many of his most powerful poems. Stanford died in 1978. He authored over ten books of poetry, including eight volumes in the last seven years of his life.
