You

By Frank Stanford 1948–1978 Frank Stanford

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.

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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