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Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
William Stafford The Poet Part1
William Stafford
I ride down Stafford road every day and it is not a bad ride. Through Wankers corners, past cows and hills and trees and for being in a car it is not bad at all. I remember running that road twice back during my ultra running days.
After work recently I got to read some his poems down in Foothills park. I find his poetry interesting and I like the fact that he did not produce much of anything until late in his 40's.
Also being an alumn of Lewis and Clark (I like Colleges with two names "William and Mary") where my wife also went to grad school steered me toward William Stafford.
He said.
I keep following this sort of hidden river of my life, you know, whatever the topic or impulse which comes, I follow it along trustingly. And I don't have any sense of its coming to a kind of crescendo, or of its petering out either. It is just going steadily along.
Stafford died of a heart attack in Lake Oswego, Oregon on August 28, 1993, having written a poem that morning containing the lines, "'You don't have to / prove anything,' my mother said. 'Just be ready / for what God sends.'"[8][9] In 2008, the Stafford family gave William Stafford's papers, including the 20,000 pages of his daily writing, to the Special Collections Department at Lewis & Clark College.
Got up on a cool morning. Leaned out a window.
No cloud, no wind. Air that flowers held
for awhile. Some dove somewhere.
Been on probation most of my life. And
the rest of my life been condemned. So these moments
count for a lot--peace, you know.
Let the bucket of memory down into the well,
bring it up. Cool, cool minutes. No one
stirring, no plans. Just being there.
This is what the whole thing is about.
I especially like this piece. He writes like I think and someday i would like to write like I think. I plant to study him a bit more in the coming weeks.
I ride down Stafford road every day and it is not a bad ride. Through Wankers corners, past cows and hills and trees and for being in a car it is not bad at all. I remember running that road twice back during my ultra running days.
After work recently I got to read some his poems down in Foothills park. I find his poetry interesting and I like the fact that he did not produce much of anything until late in his 40's.
Also being an alumn of Lewis and Clark (I like Colleges with two names "William and Mary") where my wife also went to grad school steered me toward William Stafford.
He said.
I keep following this sort of hidden river of my life, you know, whatever the topic or impulse which comes, I follow it along trustingly. And I don't have any sense of its coming to a kind of crescendo, or of its petering out either. It is just going steadily along.
Stafford died of a heart attack in Lake Oswego, Oregon on August 28, 1993, having written a poem that morning containing the lines, "'You don't have to / prove anything,' my mother said. 'Just be ready / for what God sends.'"[8][9] In 2008, the Stafford family gave William Stafford's papers, including the 20,000 pages of his daily writing, to the Special Collections Department at Lewis & Clark College.
Got up on a cool morning. Leaned out a window.
No cloud, no wind. Air that flowers held
for awhile. Some dove somewhere.
Been on probation most of my life. And
the rest of my life been condemned. So these moments
count for a lot--peace, you know.
Let the bucket of memory down into the well,
bring it up. Cool, cool minutes. No one
stirring, no plans. Just being there.
This is what the whole thing is about.
I especially like this piece. He writes like I think and someday i would like to write like I think. I plant to study him a bit more in the coming weeks.
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