{"title":"James E McWilliams","description":"\u003cp\u003eJames E McWilliams offers profound explorations into the lives of notable figures, weaving together narrative and analysis with clarity and empathy. His works invite readers into intimate portraits that balance personal insight with broader cultural context.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eReaders can expect engaging biographies and memoirs that illuminate the human experience through compelling storytelling. McWilliams’ careful attention to detail and nuanced perspective make his books valuable for those who appreciate thoughtful life histories.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"the-life-and-poetry-of-frank-stanford-by-james-mcwilliams-9781682262795","title":"The Life and Poetry of Frank Stanford","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen twenty-nine-year-old Frank Stanford put three bullets in his chest on June 3, 1978, he ended a life that had been inextricably linked with poetry since childhood. Deeply influential but largely unknown outside his corner of the poetry world, this prodigy of the American South inspired a cult following that has kept his reputation and work flickering on the periphery of the American literary tradition ever since.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Life and Poetry of Frank Stanford\u003c\/i\u003e offers for the first time a comprehensive study of Stanford’s life and work, introducing to a broad readership poetry that remains both captivating to poets and, in its celebration of everyday experience over academic erudition, accessible to those who rarely read poetry.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eStanford’s poems range from one line to his 15,263-line epic, \u003ci\u003eThe Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You\u003c\/i\u003e. The vital thread running through all of his poetry is an ear for language that vies with Walt Whitman in its expansiveness and generosity. Stanford’s omnivorous attraction to vernacular, particularly Black and rural vernacular, centered on an admiration for the marginalized and eccentric. Blending the Southern Gothic of Faulkner and O’Connor with a racially egalitarian vision, his poetry thrives on the stories and traditions of the oppressed and forgotten.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe themes that preoccupied Stanford’s prolific output—language, sex, death, class, geography, commercialism, surrealism, film, race—also preoccupied the poet in his daily life, which was marked by heavy drinking, philandering, mental instability, emotional abuse, and, through it all, an inveterate desire for beauty. Constantly attentive to this tension, biographer James McWilliams traces the short and painfully complicated life of this hidden talent who left a lifetime’s worth of poetry that, through its grounding in the mundane, achieved a vision of the transcendent.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47626584948972,"sku":"9781682262795","price":85.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781682262795.jpg?v=1778642362"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.co.nz\/collections\/james-e-mcwilliams.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}