William Stafford – författare

Stafford reflects on the writing process and on the influences on his art

"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."--William StaffordA plain-spoken but eminently effective poet, the late William Stafford (1914-1993) has managed to shape part of the mainstream of American poetry by distancing himself from its trends and politics. Though his work has always inspired controversy, he was widely admired by students and poetry lovers as well as his own peers. His fascination with the process of writing joined with his love of the land and his faith in the teaching power of nature to produce a unique poetic voice in the last third of the twentieth century.Crossing Unmarked Snow continues--in the tradition of Stafford's well-loved collections Writing the Australian Crawl and You Must Revise Your Life-- collecting prose and poetry on the writer's profession. The book includes reviews and reflections on poets from Theodore Roethke to Carolyn Forche, from May Sarton to Philip Levine; conversations on the making of poems; and a selection of Stafford's own poetry. The book also includes a section on the art of teaching, featuring interviews, writing exercises, and essays on the writer's vocation.William Stafford authored more than thirty-five books of poetry and prose during his lifetime, including the highly acclaimed Writing the Australian Crawl: Views on the Writer's Vocation and You Must Revise Your Life.

A volume in the Poets on Poetry series, which collects critical works by contemporary poets, gathering together the articles, interviews, and book reviews by which they have articulated the poetics of a new generation.In this fourth collection of reflections on writing and the writing life, the late William Stafford's lifelong refusal to separate his work from the task of living responsibly -- "What a person is shows up in what a person does" -- rings clear.The Answers Are Inside the Mountains collects unpublished interviews, poems, articles, aphorisms, and writing exercises from this great American man of letters and hugely prolific author, who kept a journal for nearly half a century and produced over 20,000 poems -- a staggering output by any standard.The book begins with the words "To overwhelm by rightness," a phrase evoking the two demands Stafford made on himself: to write daily, and to live uprightly. The Answers Are Inside the Mountains lives up to those deceptively simple ethics, and confirms William Stafford's enduringly important voice for our uncertain age.William Stafford (1914-93) authored more than thirty-five books of poetry and prose, including the highly acclaimed Writing the Australian Crawl, You Must Revise Your Life, Crossing Unmarked Snow: Further Views on the Writer's Vocation, and Traveling Through the Dark, winner of the National Book Award for Poetry.

Stafford's advice to beginning poets has become a favorite text in writing programs

The years of the first industrial revolution saw a remarkable flowering of radical social criticism in Britain. This is a study of the ideas that emerged then and of the social and intellectual conditions from which they developed. Dr Stafford begins in Part I by presenting what will be seen as a very valuable general account of the historical and cultural setting, showing how the language of social debate had been affected by intellectual developments and the increasingly rapid transformations of society. Then in Part II he discusses ten major critics of British society, from Thomas Spence to William Cobbett, who represent a wide range of political opinion from anarchism to Tory radicalism. Dr. Stafford takes a key text by each author, sets out its argument, and analyzes it both critically and historically, showing the particular influences that shaped it and revealing the ways in which the social thought of the time resembles or diverges from our own. This book will help to recover from unwarranted neglect this important tradition of writing that did much to form subsequent thinking about society. It will make a valuable contribution to the study of the literature and the social and intellectual history of the period.

This fascinating book examines what sixteen radical and conservative, famous and notorious British women wrote about their sex in the 1790s. It offers the most comprehensive survey of what they thought about their fellow women with regard to love, sexual desire and marriage; their domestic roles and their engagement in the ‘public’ sphere; and issues of gender and female abilities including sensibility and genius. How contemporary reviewers divided women writers into ‘unsex’d’ and ‘proper’ is investigated, as is the issue of whether they attempted to exclude women from certain kinds of writing. The book reveals the depth of female complaint but contends that women did not passively submit. Conservative and radicals alike sought to extend their sphere of activity, to reform men, challenge gender stereotypes and propose that a woman should be a self for herself and her God rather than for her husband.

This book is an ambitious attempt to separate what is actually known (and can be known) about Mozart from the many myths and legends that have grown up about his life, character, and death. It subjects individual myths to critical and scholarly scrutiny—weighing the evidence on which it is based, and critically assessing the reliability of that evidence. The author first considers the question of Mozart's death in 1791 at the age of 35, a subject that intrigued his contemporaries and has continued to fascinate posterity. No other aspect of Mozart's life has engendered so many dramatic and colorful myths. The stage play and movie Amadeus incorporated virtually all these myths and, indeed, most of the other myths associated with Mozart.In the remainder of this book, the author treats in similar fashion other legends relating to Mozart's alleged maturity, drinking, extravagance, unreliability, womanizing, and professional failure. There is also much material on the nature of Mozart's genius, the influence of Freemasonry on his work, and the value of his last compositions. The book is illustrated with 8 pages of halftones and line drawings.

In celebration of the American poet's centennial, Ask Me collects 100 of William Stafford's essential poems together in one title. As a conscientious objector during World War II, whilst assigned to Civilian Public Service camps, Stafford began his daily writing practice, a lifelong early morning ritual of witness. His poetry reveals the consequences of violence, the daily necessity of moral decisions, and the bounty of art. Selected and with a note by Kim Stafford, Ask Me presents the best from a profound and original American voice.

Born the year World War I began, acclaimed poet William Stafford (1914-1993) spent World War II in a camp for conscientious objectors. Throughout a century of conflict he remained convinced that wars simply don’t work. In his writings, Stafford showed it is possible—and crucial—to think independently when fanatics act, and to speak for reconciliation when nations take sides. He believed it was a failure of imagination to only see two options: to fight or to run away.This book gathers the evidence of a lifetime’s commitment to nonviolence, including an account of Stafford’s near-hanging at the hands of American patriots. In excerpts from his daily journal from 1951-1991, Stafford uses questions, alternative views of history, lyric invitations, and direct assessments of our political habits to suggest another way than war. Many of these statements are published here for the first time, together with a generous selection of Stafford’s pacifist poems and interviews from elusive sources.Stafford provides an alternative approach to a nation’s military habit, aggressive instincts, and our legacy of armed ventures in Europe, the Pacific, Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and beyond.

The Osage Orange Tree, a never-before-published story by beloved poet William Stafford, is about young love complicated by misunderstanding and the insecurity of adolescence, set against the backdrop of poverty brought on by the Great Depression. The narrator recalls a girl he once knew. He and Evangeline, both shy, never find the courage to speak to each other in high school. Every evening, however, Evangeline meets him at the Osage orange tree on the edge of her property. He delivers a newspaper to her, and they talk--and as the year progresses a secret friendship blossoms. This magical coming-of-age tale is brought to life through linocut illustrations by Oregon artist Dennis Cunningham, with an afterword by poet Naomi Shihab Nye, a personal friend of Stafford's. In the tradition of the work of great fiction writers like Steinbeck, O'Connor, and Welty, The Osage Orange Tree stands the test of time, not just as an ode to a place and a generation but as a testament to the resilience of a nation and the strength of the human heart.

This book, focusing on the agriculture sector, provides useful analysis of the green economy implementation context and a practical framework for implementing vegetable crop production green economy projects. The book addresses a distinct gap, as there are currently no guidelines available for planning and implementing green economy projects in the agriculture sector. The book combines information from desktop reviews and field research on vegetable production in a green economy context in South Africa in order to bridge the gap between the theoretical green economy concept and practical implementation issues that would be encountered at the project level. It includes a step-by-step process for translating abstract green economy principles into tangible projects on the ground, so that the potential benefits of a green economy are realizable.