I will be attending a Deep Dive Poetry Workshop on the poet William Stafford (1914-1993) conducted by John Sibley Williams. This Zoom workshop will be held online on April 30, 2026.
I will be attending The
Stafford Challenge 2026 Conference in Portland from June 18, 2026 until
June 21, 2026. This conference will be held at the Lewis and Clark College
campus. The conference has many noted teachers, poets, and scholars in
attendance. Our local Vancouver, WA, poet laurate, art’s leader, editor, and
teacher, Christopher Luna,
will be one of the teachers.
In 2026, I have been reading a lot of the poetry written by
William Stafford (1914-1993). He was a professor of English at Lewis and Clark
College in Portland, Oregon. He is one
of the best known poets from Oregon.
My preliminary observations about William Stafford’s
poetry:
1. Probably 70% of his poems fit on one page in a printed book. There are typically under 30 lines per page. A number of these poems are more in sonnet length to 20 lines per page. Each poem is titled. He tends to avoid longer lines with lots of syllables. Since I favor brief poems, his style of poetry appeals to me. His style is direct, plain, and succinct!
2.
He uses the Quintain form more often than any
other poet I have ever read. I research
quintains, pentastichs, tankas, cinquains, quintets, gogyohkas, wakas, commonplaces,
and onions.
3.
He enjoyed the outdoors in the Pacific Northwest.
He talked about camping, hiking, traveling, people, locales, plants, remote places, and enjoying
life outdoors with family and friends. Since I also share many similar interests
and write poetry
about our Pacific Bio-Region, his concise, plain, and soft spoken words resonated with me.
4.
His anti-war views and socio-political progressive
views were appealing.
He was a conscientious objector and worked in a federal camp. His philosophy was
aligned with my own views on Virtue Ethics.
5.
Many of his poems reflect Native American viewpoints,
storytelling, myths, and ways of speaking and writing. I have also studied and appreciate the literature
of Native Americans. Staccatos, repeats, chants, two world consciousness, temporal anomalies, bumpy logic, departures into animal/plant minds., mythical nexus, earthiness, insects, etc.
6. William Stafford’s style of writing benefits from the lack of obscure allusions, name dropping, radical metaphors and convoluted vocabulary, free verse rambling, Paris cliches and Big City shenanigans, and strange surrealistic oulipos Avant-guard sophisticated wordiness.
Here are the poetry books by William Stafford that I have read:
Stafford, William. The Way It Is:
New and Selected Poems. Graywolf, 1977, 1998, 268 pages. Paperback, VSCPL (My home poetry
research library.)
William Stafford. The Darkness Around Us is Deep. 1994, 160 pages. Selected Poems of William Stafford – An Award-Winning Poet's Works Chosen by Bestselling Author Robert Bly. VSCPL.
By .m.p.g.
William Stafford. Allegiances. New Poems by William Stafford. Harper and Row, 1970, 82 pages. FVRL. (Fort Vancouver Regional Libraries)
William Stafford. Even in Small Places. Conference Press, 1996, 120 pages. FVRL.
William Stafford. The World Instead: The Early Poems of William Stafford 1937-1947. Edited with an introduction by Fred Merchant. Graywold Press, 2008, 149 pages. FVRL.
I have also read books of poetry by William Stafford’s son,
Kim Stafford, as follows:
Stafford, Kim (Date). As the Sky Begins to Change. By Kim Stafford. Red H2024, 135 pages. FVRL.
Kim Stafford. A Thousand Friends of Rain: New and Selected Poems 1976-1998. By Kim Stafford. Carnegie Mellon Press, 2005, 120 pages. FVRL.
Kim Stafford. Wild Honey, Tough Salt. By Kim Stafford. Red Hen Press, 2019, 111 pages. FVRL.
As for my own poetry research, and poetry writing in April of 2026:
Bundled Up: Quintains, Volume 7
Tick-Tock Tractatus Speaking of Time: The Poetic Investigations, Part 1.
Pulling Onions Speaking of Time, The Poetic Investigations, Part 2
Another Crop of Gardening Thoughts on Time, Part 2.1, TTT 12.6
Lyric Logic: How Modern American Poetry Reasons. By Johanna Winant. Columbia University Press, 2026, 261 pages, index, bibliography, notes. VSCPL. Reading in April, 2026.
