William Stafford
William Stafford
Prolific American poet and 1970 U.S. Poet Laureate who won the National Book Award for Traveling Through the Dark. His numerous other works include In the Clock of Reason, Brother Wind, Passwords, and Wyoming Circuit.
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth17 January 1914
CountryUnited States of America
moving teaching writing
A student brings something to discuss, saying, "I don't know whether this is really good, or whether I should throw it in the wastebasket." The assumption is that one or the other choice is the right move. No. Almost everything we say or think or do - or write - comes in that spacious human area bounded by something this side of the sublime and something above the unforgivable.
world salvation glances
When you allow me to live with you, every glance at the world around you will be a sort of salvation.
writing process found
A writer is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things.
artist long assuming
Keep a journal, and don't assume that your work has to accomplish anything worthy: artists and peace-workers are in it for the long haul, and not to be judged by immediate results.
giving-up real kids
My question is "when did other people give up the idea of being a poet?" You know, when we are kids we make up things, we write, and for me the puzzle is not that some people are still writing, the real question is why did the other people stop?
people admirable
There are so many things admirable people do not understand.
jobs communication writing
I don't see writing as a communication of something already discovered, as "truths" already known. Rather, I see writing as a job of experiment. It's like any discovery job; you don't know what's going to happen until you try it.
ponds lilies dies
If you purify the pond, the lilies die
land alive world
'Be alive,' the land says, 'listen - this is your time, your world, your pleasure.'
ifs
If you can say it, it begins to exist.
lying kitchen honest
You can lie at a banquet but you have to be honest in the kitchen.
flower roots doe
The root and the flower have to trust each other. If the root does not trust, the plant won't blossom.
snow quality done
It is this impulse to change the quality of experience that I recognize as central to creation. . . . Out of all that could be done, you choose one thing. What that one thing is, nothing else can tell you--you come at it over unmarked snow.
writing matter no-matter-what
What you have to do as a writer is . . . write day in and day out no matter what happens.