William Stafford, a compeling voice

William Stafford

We filmed the 2012 William Stafford Birthday Celebration at Linfield College.  After putting an hour TV show together for McMinnville Community Media I separated the individual poets presentations, which I have been posting on our YouTube channel and here. 

Before the event I was reading Stafford's "The Darkness Around Us Is Deep".  After the Celebration I wanted to find out if I could hear and see William Stafford.  Yes the The Friends Of William Stafford website has poems and video clips of him.   The poem Farm on the Great Plains is a wonderful video clip of Stafford reading.  His voice is quiet, compelling. 

There are videos of Stafford from Poetry Videos but they cost more than I can afford at the moment.


Here in Oregon, the Friends of William Stafford are committed and have been celebrating his birthday (January 17, 1914) with poetry readings throughout the month of January for many years.    Born in Kansas, William Stafford, Kansas poet, he is also claimed by Kansas as a native son. 

Stafford taught writing at Lewis and Clark College for 30 years.  He published over 50 volumes of poetry.  "He kept a daily journal for 50 years, and composed nearly 22,000 poems, of which roughly 3,000 were published." (Wikipedia - William Stafford (poet))  He wrote "Writing the Australian Crawl" about the craft of writing poetry.  I haven't read it, but now I'm out to find a copy.

There are many, many Stafford poems across the internet, too many to try and list websites, at this time.  Maybe for a later project.