Stilled Lives

poems by Joseph Stanton

Print (softcover): $25.95
 

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Listen to this interview of the author with Catherine Cruz 
on Hawaiʻi Public Radio (April 9, 2024).

Joseph Stanton, author of this impressive collection of poems, is a masterful practitioner of art-inspired poetry. His commitment to the ekphrastic genre is evident in Stilled Lives—a collection of poems that contains three sequences: poems inspired by American nineteenth-century still-life paintings, poems on the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich, and poems on works by artists of Hawaiʻi.

ART / General
POETRY / General 

ISBN: 978-1-971191-30-0 (print; softcover; perfect bound)

LCCN: 2026946472

Released August 18, 2026; Copyright 2026

98 pages; 25 full color images

Author Biography

Joseph Stanton taught art history and American studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, where he is now a Professor Emeritus. Stanton has published in such journals as Poetry, Harvard Review, New Letters, Ekphrasis, Poetry East, Bamboo Ridge, The Ekphrastic Poetry Review, Journal of American Culture, American Art, and Art Criticism. Stanton’s previous nine books of poems include Kaaterskill Clove, Lifelines: Poems for Winslow Homer and Edward Hopper, Prevailing Winds, Moving Pictures, Things Seen, and Imaginary Museum: Poems on Art. Other books include Looking for Edward Gorey and The Important Books: Children’s Picture Books as Art and Literature.

Endorsements

“Joseph Stanton is one of America’s most accomplished ekphrastic poets.”
—Richard Wendorf, Director Emeritus of the Boston Athenaeum, author of The Elements of Life: Biography and Portrait Painting 

“A Joseph Stanton collection is always cause for celebration . . . Art is a language he speaks fluently as a scholar, and through this poetry he is an artist himself.”  
—Lorette Luzajic, editor of The Ekphrastic Review

“Joseph Stanton’s ekphrastic poetry carefully guides the reader through a wide variety of paintings, often on unexpected paths that enlarge our understanding of painting and painter, and opens our eyes to the myriad possibilities that a keen poetic imagination can bring to a visual work of art.”
—Valerie Robillard, Poems Meet Paintings, 2021

“As Joseph Stanton is an art historian as well as a poet, his poetically presented readings are even more convincing. His unusual blend of scholarship and poetry helps him dig into the paintings with the acute vision he lays out for us to consider.”
—David M. Sokol, University of Illinois at Chicago, The Journal of American Culture, 2023

News and Reviews

Peter Rosegg, “Aiea Author Writes Poetry to Inspire,” MidWeek (April 17, 2024)

Valerie Robillard, The Poetry of Joseph Stanton: Words Meet Images (September 20, 2021)

Lorette Luzajic, “Ekphrastic Interview with Joseph Stanton” (July 6, 2019)