You: Poems

by Frank Stanford

Book by Stanford, Frank

Genres: Poetry

48 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Frank Stanford was a prolific American poet. He is most known for his epic, The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You— a labyrinthine poem without stanzas or punctuation. In addition, Stanford published six shorter books of poetry throughout his 20s, and three posthumous collections of his writings (as well as a book of selected poems) have also been published.

Just shy of his 30th birthday, Stanford died on June 3, 1978 in his home in Fayetteville, Arkansas, the victim of three self-inflicted pistol wounds to the heart. In the three decades since, he has become a cult figure in American letters.

Reviews

[Brianna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will say that at first, as a person with a generally leftist background in literature in general, I began reading things about Stanford that I found troubling, to the point that I think it took a long time for me to finish a book that took perhaps thirty minutes at most to re-read. Saying that, Frank Stanford was a Southern white man who died young and before the Eighties began. After falling in love with You, I repicked up What About This, and keep falling in love. Yes he uses slurs that are relevant to that particular cultural climate, and ya gotta do what you gotta do when you gotta do it. Now I am reading What About This.

[Inverted · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only problem with this book is that it's too fucking thin.

[Carmelo Valone · Rating 5 out of 5]

These smaller collections of Frank's work are like little-unpolished gemstones.

[Jeffrey (Akiva) Savett · Rating 5 out of 5]

As other reviewers have stated wonderfully, Stanford's poetry is always explosive and surprising and swampy and fucking beautiful. That's an important curse used there...Stanford's work is such an revelatory combination of high and low, pain and pleasure, confusion and clarity. This is why he's one of my all time favorite poets.

This is a beautiful little collection shortly after his tragic death. If you're new to Stanford, I wouldn't start here. Begin with The Singing Knives.

[Abraham · Rating 4 out of 5]

very exciting to see this in print again...

[Sam Rasnake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, yes.

[Lauren Bingham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stanford is the best. You can read his work over and over and it will always be strange and explosive. This collection feels like a first kiss and a snake bite occuring simultaneously.

[Nathaniel Klaung · Rating 5 out of 5]

"You" speaking from the ground, from the smoke in your boot, from the figure left in your absence by dust.

Essential, fantastic, far up in my top 10.

[Horace]

from Instead:
When the rest of you
Were being childcare,
I became a monk
To my own listing
Imagination

from Blue Yodel of Her Feet
... you’re a wolf
That’s killed things I once loved

***
I wish I could nail your shoes to the floor
And lose your socks
Good plants bearing in bad soil
So hard to raise my eyes
Over the rest of you
So I look at your feet
They walked over the ground when you found me
They’ll cover the same terrain
When I lose you

from Shutdown
There was going to be a a dance
For a hardworking girl from my hometown
Who didn’t give a shit after the day
Shift ended on Friday who was passing
Blood in their urine that evening
And someone had broken her bird bath.

She only wanted to get her dog out
Of the pound and crawl into the sack.

She has it and she knew it
And the bird were gone
Like the man who gave her
The clay whistle shaped like an elk
You blow through the stifle.

And so was that girl
She swapped paperbacks and fruit with at lunch
sometimes.
She fixed her wiper blades once, remember
The soft dead wings on the windshield
Bright as a sewing box.
...

Freedom Revolt, And Love (note to self: sad poem, read again)

[Wuttipol✨ · Rating 5 out of 5]

You

Sometimes in our sleep we touch
The body of another woman
And we wake up
And we know the first nights
With summer visitors
In the three storied house of our childhood.
Whatever we remember,
The darkest hair being brushed
In front of the darkest mirror
In the darkest room.

[Dearwassily · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you don’t want to cry, I recommend not reading this volume while sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch on a perfect spring day.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some astonishingly lovely poems, especially "Allegory of Youth".

[Sean A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

haunting and affecting, possibly beyond words. frank stanford knows how it feels to go insane only he puts it in the terms of murder. cold murder here murder there murder everywhere. what a poet!