I see that Frank Stanford's name has come up here. We were friends c. 1969-71. Frank was truly bipolar (fuelled by J. D.'s and drugs) and could crank the stuff out brilliantly. He had his own fascinating mythology and used it well. I think the first book, The Singing Knives, is the best. A selected Stanford is still available from UArk Press.

Dear Lord, if he'd looked like that while addressing the poor child, he'd've scared it witless!

He has a resemblance to Mark Twain, though, don't you think... (anything to divert the mind from that horrifying animation).

That's unfathomably creepy - the animation, I mean, not the poem - isn't that the same guy who's done Sam's poems for U-tube, reading "The Revelation," by CP, in the links?

Sam,
"The Toys" is one of my favorite poems. I can never read it without getting all "weepy" at the end!
Cathy

I mean to take nothing away from Raine's talent nor an effort to revive the reputation of a deserving woman poet, but this poem might be a case of misattribution. Though this poem was attributed to Raine in Nina Kossman's _Gods and Mortals_, my understanding is that it is actually the work of Colin Way Reid, from his book _Open Secret_. Kossman's attributions to Raine are all suspect with the exception of "Medea." _The Women Poets in English_ by Ann Stanford might be more reliable for Raine attributions.

Thanks, Chris.

Before Professor Grierson's 1921 Anthology were not many metaphysical poets (Marvell, Herbert and Vaughan in particular) more or less forgotten and Donne left as a horrible example. A toast to Professor Grierson therefore, who was, incdentally, my English teacher's landlord. My English teacher, Hector MacIver, unlocked the pleasures of Donne to me by making us translate the meanings of various poems into prose. Note that he made us do it. He did not do it himself.

Whither, as to the bed's feet, life is shrunk,

That got a diagram on the board. As did, incidentally 'the beast with two backs).

This is very interesting, Chris, thank you. Raine's Selected Poems, which I have, came out in 1988 -- who would suspect a misattribution to so recent a poet, if you had not been so kind as to point it out?

Several poems noted above that aren't in my book -- 'The World' and 'Envoi' -- do show up in her Collected Poems in the part that is viewable on Amazon.com. There's a generous portion scanned for viewing there, but as almost three hundred pages are withheld and there are already a number of fine poems I'd never seen before, I think I'll have to check it out.

Thanks again,

Ed

Re Stanford:
Sam,
Great to hear you were friends with Frank Stanford. I have heard (or read) him quoted as saying, "Let's put on a pot of coffee and write all night!" To my mind battlefield is a touchstone for significance and intensity in a long poem. I first learned of it from Bob Dickerson, an Arkansan. C.D. Wright and Forrest Gander have served Stanford's legacy devotedly. What a project it must have been to re-edit battlefield for re-publication in 2000--and now it's even available on Amazon!

Below is a favorite of mine from The Singing Knives.
Best wishes,
Bill


The Pump

There was always a lizard
Or a frog around the pump,
Waiting for a little extra water
Or a butterfly to light.

Jimmy said the pump gave him the worms.
I got the worms under the slick boards.
The pump would bite you in the winter.
It got hold of Jimmy and wouldn’t let go.

The blades of Johnson grass were tall
And sharp around the pump stand.
I had to hoe them all the time
Nobody filled the prime jar, though.

One time, I cut the tongue
Out of a Buster Brown shoe
And gave it to the pump.
It made a good sucker washer.

Sometimes the pump seemed like Jesus.
I liked bathing buck naked
Under the pump,
Not in a goddamn washtub.

Estate of Frank Stanford © C.D. Wright
Source: The Singing Knives (Lost Road Publishers, 1979)

The Galahs

Not all the clamour of resurgent spring
and those green heartbeats in the veins of morning
outdo the winter tracery of forms,
of stripped branches against the blue sky’s chill.

Someone has set the white clouds running free
behind a palisade of reaching stems
and built a blue and white heraldic field
where pink galahs come drifting in descent.

Not all the power of summer at its height
filling his park with flowers and bees and honey
outdoes the winter’s cold when the galahs come
to perch on twigs where the buds bide their time.

xxx- R.H. Morrison