A Hundred of Happiness and Other Poems was published by Smith/Doorstop in 1995. It should have won prizes but it didn’t, although it was given a very pretty rosette by a girl from Mansfield.
This is what some people said about it:
“The domestic and the spiritual, the political and the fantastic cohabit in
Stannard’s world, held together by the contradictions and ambivalences in his
approach. It’s the tension between those contradictions that make his work so
exciting, but his real triumph is in fashioning these struggles and
contradictions into such serious entertainment.” – Mark Robinson, Scratch
“There is an urgency about the poems that won't let the reader drift away from
the text, and it's compelling. It would be hard to be bored by a Stannard poem.
You might be irritated, especially if you're the kind of poetry reader who
looks for platitudes and certainties and confirmation of what you already know,
but that would seem to me a sign that the poems are working as Stannard
intended........ [they make for] reading which is always provocative, often
exciting.” - Jim Burns, The Wide Skirt
“His language is plain but his meaning isn't; he is intelligently silly and
there are dark undercurrents to his tomfoolery. He celebrates the spontaneous
in a style that is in fact highly crafted and artful........ the most succinct
way to describe Stannard's work is as serious play......” - Emma Neale, Scratch
“He manages to create poetry out of the mundanities of everyday life, elevating
even the most commonplace experience to one of strange significance and
occasionally beauty...... He is, after all, one of the few poets around who can
combine blunt realism with fantasy and actually come out with something worth
reading.” - Jane Holland, Blade
“What lifts Stannard above so many others..... is the unforced energy of his
writing: it's not driven, exactly, but nor is it entirely contrived. He can
pull off O'Hara's trick of allowing resonant detail to arise from near-random
accumulations of thought and.... allows us access to the workings of his mind
in all its hit-and-miss glory.” - Wayne Burrows, Sheffield Thursday
“There is a sense of space in his work, of light and air, as the lines go
freewheeling. He calls to notice things that are relevant to all of us, though
continually glancing away as well....Often what he has to say is in the way of
a puzzle, often it borders on the profound -- but it always challenges you as
to exactly how profound. It's baffling, in a good way. This is poetry with the
head fully engaged.” - Keith Dersley, Tears in the Fence
For more information or to purchase A Hundred of Happiness, please go to Smith/Doorstop.