At 09:59 PM 4/21/2003 +0200, you wrote:
>Douglas: I mentioned the Stanford because I think he's somebody you just
>*might* like; it's always a risk, recommending a poet to someone else,
>particularly someone with as definite tastes as yourself, but I think this
>risk's worth it. I don't think you'll get Stanford from Peter's list, but.
>I've not seen him there before. A lot of the early poems, though, are
>available, with considerable typos, on the Alsop Review site (strangely).
>The "Battlefield . . . " is a white horse of a different colour; a long poem
>(long? well, more than 15,000 lines) 'narrated' from the viewpoint of an
>adolescent boy. As I say, like no-one else I know . . .
I came across Stanford by reading CD Wright's website. She's championed
Stanford for years and published the corrected "Battlefield" via Lost Roads
Press which she runs with Forrest Gander. To say "Battlefield" is a
difficult poem is rather like saying the Himalayas are big hills...it's
monumentally difficult but also hypnotic. There is a section that is
purely one of the funniest things I've ever read: the Last Supper and
Passion of Jesus Christ as written in Arkansas black dialect as though the
characters themselves with back-country black people.
There are also no chapters or natural pauses. It is one long poem of
several hundred pages. Some of it--as in the young boy's swim with his
teacher--are wonderfully erotic. Other parts leave you confused.
Alan Dugan apparently was also one of Stanford's champions, but was unable
to get the poem a fair reading.
His shorter poems are more accessible but do not lend themselves to casual
reading. The great game of If: IF Frank Stanford hadn't pumped three slugs
into his chest at age 29, in what directions might he have gone?....
Ken
-----------------------------
Kenneth Wolman http://www.kenwolman.com http://kenwolman.blogspot.com
Lord, steel us against the expectation of disappointment and our belief in
the certainty of heartbreak....
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