William Stafford

Poems deal with parents, Western landscapes, Native Americans, peace, childhood, nature, and the past.

Selected Poems of William Stafford

The Darkness Around Us is Deep

William Stafford (1914-1993) was an earnest, perceptive, and often affecting American poet who filled his life and ours with poetry of challenge and consolation. The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems gathers unpublished works from his last year, including the poem he wrote the day he died, as well as an essential and wide-ranging selection of works from throughout his career. An editorial team including his son Kim Stafford, the poet Naomi Shihab Nye, and the poet, translator, and author Robert Bly collaborated on shaping this book of Stafford's pioneering career in modern poetry. The poems in The Way It Is encompass Stafford's rugged domesticity, the political edge of his irony, and his brave starings-off into emptiness.

New and Selected Poems

The Way It Is

Poems

Even in Quiet Places

"In our time there has been no poet who revived human hearts and spirits more convincingly than William Stafford." --Naomi Shihab Nye Some time when the river is ice ask me mistakes I have made. Ask me whether what I have done is my life. --from "Ask Me" In celebration of the poet's centennial, Ask Me collects one hundred of William Stafford's essential poems. As a conscientious objector during World War II, while assigned to Civilian Public Service camps Stafford began his daily writing practice, a lifelong early-morning ritual of witness. His poetry reveals the consequences of violence, the daily necessity of moral decisions, and the bounty of art. Selected and with a note by Kim Stafford, Ask Me presents the best from a profound and original American voice.

100 Essential Poems of William Stafford

Ask Me

Stafford's advice to beginning poets has become a favorite text in writing programs

Views on the Writer's Vocation

Writing the Australian Crawl

In this posthumous collection of his meditations on writing and the writing life, William Stafford's lifelong refusal to separate his work from the task of living responsibly -- "What a person is shows up in what a person does" -- rings clear. Stafford kept a journal for nearly half a century and produced over 20,000 poems -- a treasure trove of writing still being uncovered long after his death. The book begins with the words "To overwhelm by rightness," a phrase evoking the two demands Stafford made on himself: to write well, and to live uprightly. This book lives up to those deceptively simple ethics. In his words William Stafford lives on as a voice for our times -- a bright light in a clouded age. William Stafford, who died in 1993, authored more than thirty-five books of poetry and prose during his lifetime, including the highly acclaimed Writing the Australian Crawl: Views on the Writer's Vocation, You Must Revise Your Life, and Traveling Through the Dark, winner of the National Book Award for Poetry. In this posthumous collection of his meditations on writing and the writing life, William Stafford's lifelong refusal to separate his work from the task of living responsibly -- "What a person is shows up in what a person does" -- rings clear. Stafford kept a journal for nearly half a century and produced over 20,000 poems -- a treasure trove of writing still being uncovered long after his death. The book begins with the words "To overwhelm by rightness," a phrase evoking the two demands Stafford made on himself: to write well, and to live uprightly. This book lives up to those deceptively simple ethics. In his words William Stafford lives on as a voice for our times -- a bright light in a clouded age. William Stafford, who died in 1993, authored more than thirty-five books of poetry and prose during his lifetime, including the highly acclaimed Writing the Australian Crawl: Views on the Writer's Vocation, You Must Revise Your Life, and Traveling Through the Dark, winner of the National Book Award for Poetry.

Meditations on the Writing Life

The Answers are Inside the Mountains

"The Osage Orange Tree, a never-before-published story by William Stafford, is about shy, young love complicated by misunderstanding and the insecurity of adolescence, set against the backdrop of poverty brought on by the Great Depression. In the story, the narrator recalls a girl he once knew. He and Evangeline, both shy, never find the courage to speak to each other in high school. Every evening, however, Evangeline meets him at the Osage orange tree on the edge of her property. He delivers a newspaper to her, and they talk-and as the year progresses a secret friendship blossoms. Evangeline is absent on graduation day, and the narrator learns that Evangeline has used the money meant for her graduation dress to buy the newspapers from him all year"--

A Story

The Osage Orange Tree

A collection of fifty poems which reflect the ways in which we relate to the world around us.

Earth Poems

Learning to Live in the World

A killer is slaughtering the prostitutes of Victorian London and Inspector John Kipper is baffled. Meanwhile, Damien Deacus, sidekick to a mysterious doctor, strives to keep himself out of trouble - and fails! Author William Stafford combines humour, horror and steampunk in this historical fantasy of gruesome crime and comic invention.

A Slice of Steampunk

Trapping Fog

TRAVELING THROUGH THE DARK.

West of Your City

Life is tough on the frontier world of Vultures' Moon. Gunslinger Jed and his trusty Horse do what they can to keep the peace but when an old enemy sets a plan in motion that threatens to destroy everything, Jed has to go to extremes to protect the settlers. From the writer of Octavius Mint & The Indigo Dragon, this action-packed space western puts a new spin on traditional characters and situations.

A Sci-Fi Western

Vultures' Moon

Italy during the Renaissance and Sparafucile and his sister strive to make a living bumping off any unfortunate rich man who happens across their path. The trouble is: as an assassin, Sparafucile is not what you might call competent and his unpredictable sister seems to be spiralling out of control. Inspired by characters in Verdi's Rigoletto, this is an action-packed, fun-filled visit to a world of intrigue and betrayal, from the author of Leporello on the Lam.

A Comedy of Murders

The Assassin and His Sister

Essays, interviews, and poetry by revered poet and teacher William Stafford

Further Views on the Writer's Vocation

Crossing Unmarked Snow

Controversial television historian Hank Brownlow comes to England to research his latest outlandish theory about Shakespeare but finds he is not alone in his quest. Someone else is following the same trail and people are ending up dead. Meaniwhile, in Stratford upon Avon, disgruntled tour guide Harry is visited by a stranger who claims to be a character from 'The Tempest'. Author of Leporello On The Lam and the Brough & Miller series, William Stafford has created a satirical contemporary fantasy with a lively sense of humour.

A Novel of Magic and Shakespeare

Where The Bee Sucks

John Hales

(otherwise Called "A Briefe Conceipt of English Pollicy.")

William Stafford's Compendious Or Briefe Examination of Certayne Ordinary Complaints of Diuers of Our Countrymen in These Our Dayes, A. D. 1581

Frederick H. Candelaria

Contains a range of prose pieces with questions for discussion and exercises on each.

William Stafford

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