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
getting-lost madness where-you-are
The more you let yourself be distracted from where you are going, the more you are the person that you are. It's not so much like getting lost as it is like getting found.
owl ears sound
An owl sound wandered along the road with me. I didn't hear it--I breathed it into my ears.
legends way world
So, the world happens twice-- once what we see it as; second it legends itself deep, the way it is.
character compassion people
Security of character would be like a compass, you know? Other people may say that this way is north, or this way might be north. But the compass just says -- north. That's what we count on.
writing mind pieces
A student comes to me with a piece of writing, holds it out, says, 'Is this good?' A whole sequence of emergencies goes off in my mind. That's not a question to ask anyone but yourself.
dream writing discovery
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.
half wake-up whole
It's love,' they say. You touch the right one and a whole half of the universe wakes up, a new half.
rivers topics kind
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.
grateful gold safe
Once we have tasted far streams, touched the gold, found some limit beyond the waterfall, a season changes and we come back changed but safe, quiet, grateful.
fear going-away world
...What you fear will not go away; it will take you into yourself and bless you and keep you. That's the world, and we all live there.
rivers waiting silence
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.
real caring people
Everyone is born a poet - a person discovering the way words sound and work, caring and delighting in words. I just kept on doing what everyone starts out doing. The real question is: Why did other people stop?
memories just-being buckets
Let the bucket of memory down into the well, bring it up. Cool, cool minutes. No one stirring, no plans. Just being there.
life wisdom learning
Wisdom is having things right in your life and knowing why.