Hidden Water: From the Frank Stanford Archives

This ephemeral companion to Stanford's newly released collected poems further cements his place as a major 20th-century poet as it sheds light on the immense power of his drafting process, his social life, and his mountains of unpublished work. What's astonishing about Stanford's B-sides is how quickly a pair of lines or sudden burst of anaphora can halt one's breath with the same force as his published work: "I can dream I'm death ringing in your ears," he writes. "I can dream cleaning grave mud off my boots with a knife." Stanford's poems are so thoroughly entrenched in the mythological world he built up around himself%E2%80%94and so often laced with stunning singular lines%E2%80%94that it can be difficult to walk away from his books with any memory of a single poem. In Stanford's handwritten correspondence with other poets, readers will feel shades of self-doubt and eagerness that deepen the feral emotional landscapes of his poems, and by including a vital archive of typewritten manuscripts, photographs, letters, and drawings, editors Wiegers and Weise allow readers to more fully see the poet behind the mythos. This is a must-have for both die-hard Stanford fans and the newly initiated. (July)