Rereading Frank Stanford in the Light of Truth

More than ten years ago, as I was researching the life of the beloved but obscure poet Frank Stanford, Sam Gwynn told me, “No one will know the absolute facts of Frank’s early childhood, but it’s pretty clear from his poetry that he felt he was anointed in some obscure way.” Gwynn, one of Stanford’s fellow graduate workshop members at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, was mostly correct.