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William Stafford

William Stafford Books

Poet

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“Next time what I'd do is look at the earth before saying anything. I'd stop just before going into a house and be an emperor for a minute and listen better to the wind or to the air being still. When anyone talked to me, whether blame or praise or just passing time, I'd watch the face, how the mouth has to work, and see any strain, any sign of what lifted the voice. And for all, I'd know more -- the earth bracing itself and soaring, the air finding every leaf and feather over forest and water, and for every person the body glowing inside the clothes like a light.”

StillnessNext Time
Book:An Oregon Message
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“All events and experiences are local, somewhere. And all human enhancements of events and experiences -- all the arts -- are regional in the sense that they derive from immediate relation to felt life. It is this immediacy that distinguishes art. And paradoxically the more local the feeling in art, the more all people can share it; for that vivid encounter with the stuff of the world is our common ground. Artists, knowing this mutual enrichment that extends everywhere, can act, and praise, and criticize, as insiders -- the means of art is the life of all people. And that life grows and improves by being shared. Hence, it is good to welcome any region you live in or come to, or think of, for that is where life happens to be, right where you are.”

PlaceLocalRegionalismLocale
Author:William Stafford
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“Assurance" You will never be alone, you hear so deep a sound when autumn comes. Yellow pulls across the hills and thrums, or in the silence after lightning before it says its names-and then the clouds' wide-mouthed apologies. You were aimed from birth: you will never be alone. Rain will come, a gutter filled, an Amazon, long aisles-you never heard so deep a sound, moss on rock, and years. You turn your head- that's what the silence meant: you're not alone. The whole wide world pours down.”

AssuranceWilliam Stafford
Author:William Stafford
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“This is the field where the battle did not happen, where the unknown soldier did not die. This is the field where grass joined hands, where no monument stands, and the only heroic thing is the sky. Birds fly here without any sound, unfolding their wings across the open. No people killed—or were killed—on this ground hallowed by neglect and an air so tame that people celebrate it by forgetting its name.”

WarDeathPoetryPeaceNaturePoemBattles
Book:The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems
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“I have this feeling of wending my way or plundering through a mysterious jungle of possibilities when I am writing. This jungle has not been explored by previous writers. It never will be explored. It's endlessly varying as we progress through the experience of time. These words that occur to me come out of my relation to the language which is developing even as I am using it.”

WayWritingFeelingsLanguageProgressPossibilityRelationMysteriousMy WayDevelopingJungle
Author:William Stafford
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“Writing itself is one of the great, free human activities. There is scope for individuality, and elation, and discovery. In writing, for the person who follows with trust and forgiveness what occurs to him, the world remains always ready and deep, an inexhaustible environment, with the combined vividness of an actuality and flexibility of a dream. Working back and forth between experience and thought, writers have more than space and time can offer. They have the whole unexplored realm of human vision.”

WorldWritingHumansPersonsWholeDreamSpaceVisionEnvironmentReadyOffersActivityDiscoveryRemainsIndividualityRealmsFlexibilityTime And SpaceScopeBack And ForthHuman ActivityActualityUnexploredElationVividness
Author:William Stafford
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“Ask Me Some time when the river is ice ask me mistakes I have made. Ask me whether what I have done is my life. Others have come in their slow way into my thought, and some have tried to help or to hurt: ask me what difference their strongest love or hate has made. I will listen to what you say. You and I can turn and look at the silent river and wait. We know the current is there, hidden; and there are comings and goings from miles away that hold the stillness exactly before us. What the river says, that is what I say.”

KnowsWayLooksMadeI CanDoneHelpingHateTurnsAsksWaitingDifferencesHurtMistakeRiversSilentCurrentsMilesIceAsk MeStrongestStillnessMy ThoughtsMiles AwayLove Or Hate
Book:Ask Me: 100 Essential Poems of William Stafford
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“The Way It Is There’s a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesn’t change. People wonder about what you are pursuing. You have to explain about the thread. But it is hard for others to see. While you hold it you can’t get lost. Tragedies happen; people get hurt or die; and you suffer and get old. Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding. You don’t ever let go of the thread. ~ William Stafford ~”

PeopleWayHardHappensSufferingDiesLostHurtWonderLetting GoTragedyThreadUnfoldingStop Time
Author:William Stafford
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