The Rescued Year
1966
First Published
4.40
Average Rating
88
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William Edgar Stafford (1914-1993) was an American poet, pacifist, and father of poet and essayist Kim Stafford. He was appointed the twentieth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1970.One of the most striking features of his career is that he began publishing his poetry only later in life. His first major collection of poetry Traveling Through the Dark was published when he was forty-eight years old. It won the National Book Award. The title poem is one of Stafford's most well known works and describes an experience of encountering a recently killed doe on a mountain road. Before pushing the doe off into the canyon,he discovers that the doe was pregnant and the fawn inside the doe is still alive. Stafford had a quiet daily ritual of writing and his writing focuses on the ordinary. The gentle quotidian style of his poetry has been compared to Robert Frost. His poems are typically short, focusing on earthy, accessible details appropriate to a specific locality. Stafford "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." He was a close friend and collaborator with poet Robert Bly. He was a frequent contributor to magazines and anthologies and eventually published fifty-seven volumes of poetry. He kept a daily journal for 50 years, and composed nearly 22,000 poems, of which roughly 3,000 were published. In 1970, he was named Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, a position that is now known as Poet Laureate. In 1975, he was named Poet Laureate of Oregon. In 1980, he retired from Lewis and Clark College but continued to travel extensively and give public readings of his poetry. In 1992, he won the Western States Book Award for lifetime achievement in poetry.
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Author
William Stafford
Author · 25 books
William Edgar Stafford was an American poet and pacifist, and the father of poet and essayist Kim Stafford. He and his writings are sometimes identified with the Pacific Northwest. In 1970, he was named Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, a position that is now known as Poet Laureate. In 1975, he was named Poet Laureate of Oregon; his tenure in the position lasted until 1990. In 1980, he retired from Lewis & Clark College but continued to travel extensively and give public readings of his poetry. In 1992, he won the Western States Book Award for lifetime achievement in poetry. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William...
