Offical Website

http://www.typomag.com/frankstanfordfestival

Sponsor

As we would like to keep the events free or at minimal cost to the public, we seek sponsors to help cover our promotional and venue costs. Additionally, we hope to compensate some of our poets and panelists, many of whom are distinguished professors, poets, and friends of Stanford traveling from afar. Charitable sponsorships start at $100, tax deductible through Lost Roads Publishers, a non-profit organization, founded by Frank Stanford in Fayetteville in 1976. Sponsors of $300 or more will be recognized for helping to bring figures of historical literary significance to the event. Sponsors will be recognized in printed and electronic promotional material and websites, as well as verbally at each event during the festival. We will also recognize sponsors in a commemorative festival program designed by Cannibal Books, a book arts literary publisher, and will give as thanks a commemorative letterpressed broadside of Frank Stanford’s poem “Indeed,” a collaborative effort between Lost Roads Publishers, Cannibal Books, and Effing Press (of Austin, Texas).

If you would like to sponsor, seek further information, or offer alternative services, contact Matthew Henriksen at frankstanfordfest(at)gmail(dot)com. Checks are payable to “Lost Roads Publishers” and should be mailed to event coordinator Matthew Henriksen at 165 South Hill Avenue, Fayetteville, AR 72701. Include a mailing and/or email address for tax exemption identification number.

Thank you to our current sponsors for their gracious support of Frank Stanford's legacy & the literary arts in northwest Arkansas:

The Programs in Creative Writing & Translation at the University of Arkansas
The Dickson Street Bookshop
Four Square Fine Arts Gallery
Greg Bachar
Projective Industries
Rain Taxi
Slope Editions

Small Press Reading

In celebration of small presses, such as Stanford's Lost Roads, and those who published Stanford, notably Irving Broughton's Mill Mountain Press and Mike Cuddihay's Ironwood, the festival will open with readings by eighteen poets rooted in today's vibrant small press community. Small press books will be available for browsing and sale, and Greg Brownderville will play blues during breaks and afterward.

7:15 - 8:00
Susan Scarlata
Adam Clay
Lily Brown
Abraham Smith
Anne Boyer

Blue intermission by Greg Brownderville

8:15 - 9:00
Maureen Alsop
Mathias Svalina
Carolyn Guinzio
Graham Foust

Blue intermission by Greg Brownderville

9:15 - 10:00
Joseph Bradshaw
Bronwen Tate
Philip Jenks
Ralph Adamo

Blue intermission by Greg Brownderville

10:15 - 11:00
Timothy Van Dyke
Shannon Jonas
Julia Cohen
Jane Gregory
Tony Tost

Friday, October 17, 2008, 7-11 pm
The Garden Room
215 West Dickson Street
$5 suggested donation
Afterparty until midnight with music and drinks at The Garden Room

Panel Discussions

The festival will host three panels. The first will deal with the potential for scholarship on Stanford's creative works. The second will handle Stanford's influence on an emerging generation of poets, and the third will consist of Stanford's friends, who will discuss his life and work. Complete detail on the panels will be available during the first week in October, as ongoing fundraisers will determine exactly who will sit on each panel.

Film Screening

It Wasn't a Dream It Was a Flood

Screening of Irving Broughton’s legendary Stanford biopic, introduced by the director, who shot the film on 16mm with Stanford’s assistance in 1974. The film fuses surrealism with biography and features interviews with some of Stanford’s childhood friends who emerged as characters in his poems. The film won one of the Judge's Awards at the 1975 Northwest Film & Video Festival. The film has never been officially released.

Saturday, October 18, 2:15-2:45 pm
Walker Community Room
Fayetteville Public Library
FREE

Frank Stanford Reading

Dozens of poets from Fayetteville & afar read from eight books of Stanford's poems

The Singing Knives (Mill Mountain 1971, 1979; Lost Roads 2008)
Ladies from Hell (Mill Mountain 1974)
Shade (Mill Mountain 1973, 1975)
Field Talk (Mill Mountain 1974)
Arkansas Bench Stone (Mill Mountain 1975)
Constant Stranger (Mill Mountain 1976)
Crib Death (Ironwood Press 1978)
You (Lost Roads 1979, 2008)

Saturday, October 18, 3-5
Walker Community Room
Fayetteville Public Library
FREE

Marathon Reading

The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You

Stanford’s epic 15,280 line poem, originally published in 1977 by Mill Mountain in conjunction with Lost Roads & subsequently published by Lost Roads

Procedure

The reading will begin at 8 pm sharp and continue uninterrupted until the final word is read. Each participant will read four pages and hand off without introduction to the next participant. Invited participants may request time slots to read a passage to be determined or may sign up the day of the event. Festival attendees who wish to read are welcome to sign up at the event, but we will not reserve spots, due to a high volume of interest. We anticipate that everyone who wants to read will have the opportunity.

Once the reading begins, we ask that attendees remain silent. A break room with refreshments will provide a place for quiet conversation. To avoid confusion, the reading room will have a board listing the order of upcoming readers, and we’ll have a working master list in the reading room for those wishing to sign up. As the number of attendees dwindles, we may ask readers to read longer passages, via announcements on the reading room board. Participants may also be welcomed to read additional passages when the need arises. We are determined to read continuously, without interruption or outside noise, through the evening at a steady but loving pace.

While our venue may allow alcoholic beverages, excessive drinking and rowdy or otherwise disruptive behavior will be grounds for expulsion from the event. We expect no such problems will arise but will have appropriate measures in place to deal with such nonsense.

To our knowledge, only two marathon readings of The Battlefield Where the Moon Say I Love You have ever been held (at Brown University and The Bowery Poetry Club). We anticipate that the first ever such reading held in Fayetteville will conclude the festival epically.

Saturday, October 18 - Sunday, October 18, 7 pm - 7 am
Metro District Meeting Room
509 West Spring Street
$5-10 suggested donation

Featuring a Small Press Reading, a panel on Stanford's life and works, a screening of the Stanford biopic It Wasn't a Dream It Was a Flood, a celebratory reading from Stanford's poems, and a marathon reading of The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You

Hosted by
The Burning Chair Readings
Cannibal Books
Lost Roads Publishers
Fascicle
Typo
&
The Fayetteville Public Library

If you would like to attend, publicize, sponsor, or otherwise query, contact me at frankstanfordfest (at) gmail (dot) com