[Bill Carpenter]

Thanks for diving into Frank Stanford's battlefield, Patrick! And reporting on your immersion! Great review! I was planning to post an essay on it, though I hardly think I need to, since the proof is in the eating, and you have pointed the way to potential diners.

I think of the poem as built on a systole-diastole rhythm, alternating between soaring surrealistic-rhetorical lyrical expansions and earthy, humorous and/or romantic narratives. It is set in the late 50's-early 60's mainly in the Mississippi delta levee camps, also in Memphis with a little time in New Orleans. The protagonist is 12 year old Francis, a precocious clairvoyant white child. It is readily available now, which it wasn't for many years. Someone described it as Huck Finn written by Andre Breton.

Frank Stanford's epitaph reads, "It wasn't a dream it was a flood."

The Singing Knives is an early book of his, all shorter and longer lyrics, some very strong.