February 2014
FEATURES
The Southwest Portland Post • 5
Community celebrates life of William Stafford at centennial gathering
By Lee Braymen-Cleary
The Southwest Portland Post
On Jan. 15, Annie Bloom’s Books in
Multnomah Village was one of the first
to celebrate the centennial birthday of
Oregon’s soft-spoken and highly ac-
claimed poet, author and photographer,
William Stafford.
This winter thousands of other
admirers from Portland to Bend to
Roseburg, from Seattle to Tucson to
New York and points in between and
beyond will follow suit, offering po-
etry readings, lectures, poetry writing
classes, even television biographies like
one Oregon Public Broadcasting aired
on Jan. 16.
You might say that since Stafford
served as Oregon’s poet laureate for 17
years, we Oregonians have made him
our poet, our champion of peace regard-
less of his Midwestern background.
The narrator of Stafford’s well known
poem, “Traveling through the Dark,”
speaks of a hard choice. He sets the
stage in the first stanza:
Traveling through the dark I found a deer
Dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
That road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.
Next he dramatically includes a softer
approach in stanza three:
My fingers touching her side brought me the reason—
Her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
Alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.
And in stanza five leads a reader to a
painful conclusion:
I thought hard for us all—my only swerving--
Then pushed her [the deer] over the edge into the river.
Sometimes dubbed the “Robert Frost
of Oregon,” Stafford, though, also
served as the 20th consultant to the
Library of Congress in 1970 before the
term “poet laureate” existed; thus his
heart and mind belong to the nation.
The Annie Bloom’s event honor-
ing Stafford had its own flavor. The
bookstore’s casual, intimate space was
tinged with a spiritual—though not
religious—calm.
Several local poets including Anmarie
Trimble, Tom Hogan, Barbara Drake
and Susan des Freitas read from their
own works as well and some of their
long-time Stafford favorites such as
“The Farm on the Great Plains,” “Voca-
tion,” and “A Bird inside a Box.”
It is well known that Stafford was a
pacifist, that he lived out that philoso-
phy during World War II as a conscien-
tious objector.
He worked on active duty then in
church-sponsored camps, committing
himself to forestry and soil conserva-
tion, actions that may have sparked
his life long reverence for nature and
its preservation.
Following that war and for the rest
his life, Stafford rose most mornings as
early as 3:00 a.m. to write and reflect on
life, on the nature of war, and on seeking
paths to peaceful conflict resolution.
Mountain Park resident and birth-
day celebrant Fraser Rasmussen is a
Vietnam veteran who years ago found
truths and consolation in one of Staf-
ford’s 57 published works, “War has
Two Losers.”
Stafford wrote such lines as “Can
injustice one way be corrected without
the interim reaction that tries to impose
injustice the other way?” and “A speech
is something you say so as to distract
attention from what you do say.”
These lines demonstrate that soft-
spoken Stafford was not a soft thinker
but a keen viewer of the way of things
are, even with those behind the vast
political curtain.
Stafford was born in Kansas on Jan.
17, 1914 into a close family inordinately
fond of words. By the time
he was a teenager during
the Depression, his life was
demanding.
He worked to help pro-
vide for his family and
moved with them from
place to place so his father,
Earl, could find work.
Perhaps those hard ex-
periences contributed in
part to his plain speech and
wisdom, to his ability to
separate what is from what
is not important in life, and
to make the hard choices.
It has been said that Staf-
ford sought a publisher
for his poem “Traveling
through the Dark” more
than 30 times. But it has
been anthologized many
times now.
Is it the harsh ending that
put publishers off at first?
How fortunate we are that
some publisher had the
courage, and that Stafford William Stafford as pictured on the cover of his book The
was comfortable with the Way It Is: New & Selected Poems, Graywolf Press, 1998.
notion “one can be different (Photo by Kim Stafford)
and apart.”
It was in 1948 that Stafford moved
Anmarie Trimble, a poet and Portland
to Oregon to join the Lewis and Clark
State University instructor who offered
College faculty. With the exception
her works at Annie Bloom’s that night,
of two years, he remained there until
concurs with the notion of Stafford
retirement in 1980.
toughness.
For 30 years he imparted his philoso-
“I think Stafford is a master of every-
phies and thoughts on literature and po-
day sublime—and by sublime I mean
etry to young thinkers and wordsmiths.
the true Romantic notion,” said Trimble.
If our world found Stafford a patient
“But he doesn’t strike me as being
man, a thoughtful and courageous man,
idealistic about it. His poems appreci-
his students found him more.
ate how things are, and it’s his ability to
He was open, kind and supportive.
look squarely in the face of what is real
Stafford was known for maxims like
that I find so empathetic and generous.”
“Your job is to find out what the world
Trimble adopts Stafford’s notion that
is trying to be” and “If you’re writing
individuality is acceptable, more than
and you get stuck, lower your standards
acceptable, for she is taking her poetry
and keep on going.”
in different directions.
If you are interested in attending
In honor of Stafford’s birthday she
more William Stafford celebratory
read one of her poems, “In the Garden,”
events, you can find a complete list of
then strummed her guitar to accom-
them at www.williamstafford.org.
pany her second poem, “Lullaby.”
Try a Little
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