Hidden Water (Limited Edition)

The definitive collection of Frank Stanford's poetry, drafts, and letters. This is a special, limited edition of 500.

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A very special collaboration between Third Man Books and Copper Canyon Press, THE HIDDEN WATER SPECIAL EDITION is a limited edition, multi-media set that includes two books: the 730+ page What About This (Copper Canyon) and the 200+ page Hidden Water (Third Man Books), plus two broadsides reproducing original sketches by Stanford, and a custom notepad inspired by the workpad Stanford used at his day job as a land surveyor. The Hidden Water Special Edition is the definitive collection of Stanford poetry, drafts, letters, and ephemera. The set comes shrink-wrapped and in a custom made sleeve.


Born in 1948, Frank Stanford was a prolific poet known for his originality and ingenuity. He has been dubbed “a swamp rat 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. Stanford died in 1978. He authored over ten books of poetry, including eight volumes in the last seven years of his life.

“What About This… introduces to a broader audience an important and original American poet — sensitive, death-haunted, surreal, carnal, dirt-flecked and deeply Southern — whose promise, only partly fulfilled, it hurts to contemplate. His poems flick on a heretofore unnoticed porch light in your mind.” —The New York Times

“Hidden Water offers a broad and beautiful collection of photographs, drawings, letters and drafts of poems with notes and edits scribbled in the poet’s own hand. It even features a partial inventory of Stanford’s record collection (John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Leadbelly) and a picture of the business card he used for his day job . . .And in the end, Stanford’s voice is as clear, plain and death-obsessed as ever: “I wandered I sang / I made promises to death and I kept them / so having done / with my work in this world / I dove into that pool. —The Houston Chronicle