Early Morning

With incredible insight and love, Kim Stafford offers a view into the remarkable life of his father, the poet William Stafford

The unspoken deep affection he lived by was like the idea in his poem about the Eskimos—their disdain for "People who talk about God." In his world, a fact so pervasive as love never need be named.

William Stafford wrote a poem nearly every day of his life, most often before dawn, as he lay on a much-used couch that bore the imprint of his body after years of use. He was a prolific, highly acclaimed poet, famous pacifist, and extraordinary friend to nearly everyone he met. But Kim was given perhaps his father's greatest gift—and greatest challenge—to be his literary executor.

Carefully sifting through his father's papers—thousands of poems written on napkins, grocery receipts, letters—Kim follows a copious trail of words matched only by his father's silences. Kim is able to visit his father's life in a deeply personal way and, as a result, beautifully illuminates William Stafford as someone who was unafraid to stare into emptiness and to live a life so fully in the moment that he was able to touch countless lives with a single poem.