Faith, Dogma, and Heresy

By Frank Stanford 1948–1978 Frank Stanford

It was Sunday, before dinner.

My uncles were listening to the opera.

O.Z. and I carried my brother in

And laid him on the table.

The women started screaming.

My brother raised up on his side

With dried blood on his hands,

We killed those goddamn Canale brothers

And nobody is ever going to touch us!

The men shut their eyes and danced.

We drank until morning

When everything was quiet.

They wiped their eyes, kissed us goodbye and left.

Estate of Frank Stanford © C.D. Wright

Source: You (Lost Road Publishers, 1979)

Biography

Born in 1948, 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. He attended the University of Arkansas from 1967-9 and studied engineering while continuing to . . .

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