BY LOIS WADSWORTH
Reconciliation
‘The patient, worthy job’
EVERY WAR HAS TWO LOSERS:
William Stafford on Peace and War.
Edited and with an introduction by Kim Stafford.
Milkweed Editions, 2003. Paperback, $16.
K
im Stafford knows his late father,
former Oregon poet laureate
William Stafford, in ways not open
to most of us. William named Kim his liter-
ary executor, which is both a privilege and
a great responsibility. Every War Has Two
Losers: William Stafford on Peace and War
is a new collection of William’s pacifist
writings, edited and introduced by his poet,
teacher, pacifist son.
“I first thought of my father as a poet,”
Kim Stafford said in a recent telephone
interview. “But my understanding of his
work has evolved. Now I see he was a seek-
er, who used writing in both his private life
and his public life to accomplish many
things. Poems were his currency.”
Stafford speaks on “Poetry and the Life
of the Seeker” at 7:30 pm on Feb. 3 in the
Knight Library Browsing Room. A public
reception follows. A limited-edition letter-
press broadside from Knight Library Press
will be for sale as well as books for signing.
Stafford directs the Northwest Writing
Institute at Lewis and Clark College in
Portland. He has taught at Lewis and
Clark 25 years, and before that studied 12
years at the UO, where he earned three
degrees, culminating in his 1979 Ph.D.
He’s spending his working life in acade-
mia, and he is passionate about making
poetry matter.
“Poems can result in action,” Stafford
said. “We can learn to live our lives in a dif-
ferent way because of poetry. We should
ask of the university: Is it a closed system?
Or is it expanding, moving us into the
world? Where’s the Big Bang?” Stafford
said he had recently heard L.A. perform-
ance artist Snowbird say, “Poetry will
always be essential in society, because
poets don’t make enough money to lie.”
Stafford is also clear about the differ-
ence between being opposed to war and
being an active peacemaker. “’Anti-war’ is
not as strong as ‘reconciliation,’” he said.
“War has a strong story-line. It is visible.
The work of peacemakers is inclusive and
S
sustained. It’s what my father called ‘the
patient, worthy job.’”
Likewise, Stafford insists that Every War
Has Two Losers is not about the ethics of
war. “It is about the impracticability of war to
solve problems,” he said. “A pacifist doesn’t
have to solve the historical predicament to
make a personal choice to practice and
advance reconciliation. Even in World War
II, some soldiers leveled with their officers: ‘I
won’t kill. Put me somewhere that I won’t
have to kill.’ They made a separate peace.”
William Stafford was a conscientious
objector in WWII, and one of the most
moving chapters in Every War is “The Mob
Scene at McNeil.” Kim Stafford said there
were 700 soldiers for every CO in that war.
“The story of the COs is the hidden part of
the story,” he said. “It wasn’t known. It was
very inconvenient to let it be known.”
William’s experience on a Sunday after-
noon, March 22, 1942, in McNeil, Ark.,
expresses some of the inner strength — and
the sense of humor — required to be a
peacemaker during “the good war.”
“It takes such an intricate succession of
misfortunes and blunders to get mobbed by
your own countrymen — and such a close
balancing of good fortune to survive — that
I consider myself a rarity, in this respect, in
being able to tell the story from the subject’s
point of view,” Stafford wrote. He was read-
ing Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, another CO
was writing a poem, and a third was painting
a picture of a decrepit building when some
men from town gathered around them, began
to mutter and quickly became belligerent.
The eight-page story is beautifully writ-
ten and suggests William Stafford might also
have found success as a prose writer had he
not so loved the poetic form to express his
thoughts. Stafford included the story in his
1947 master’s thesis with the title “Peace
Relic.” (William Stafford’s thesis has been
re-published by OSU Press as Down In My
Heart: Peace Witness in War Time.)
Kim Stafford said Every War doesn’t
have one big answer to our current
predicament. “It asks questions. It begins
meditation and the search for reconcilia-
tion. It’s a packet of seeds. It can con-
tribute to the next paradigm the world is
moving toward.”
ew
BOOK NOTES Jan. 29 - March 4: From
her acclaimed memoir, Reading Lolita in Tehran,
Azar Nafisi will read at 7:30 pm on Jan. 30 at
Annie Blooms Books, Portland. …Kim Stafford
reads from Every War Has Two Losers and dis-
cusses “Poetry and the Life of the Seeker:
William Stafford on Peace and War” at 7:30 pm
on Feb. 3 in the Knight Library Browsing Room.
…Diane Hammond reads from her novel, Going
to Bend, at 7 pm on Feb. 5 at UO Bookstore.
Free. …Elizabeth Engstrom speaks on “How to
Write a Well-Crafted Sex Scene” at 6:30 pm on
Feb. 5 at Baker Downtown Center. $5 non-mem-
bers. …Romance and mystery writer Carola
andy Tilcock, director of the Knight Library Press, and her student interns have created a black-on-black diptych
broadside for the words of William Stafford and an unpublished poem by Kim Stafford. The broadside contains a cen-
tral image of a Zen Buddhist symbol for the circle of enlightenment, an enso.
The polymer plate with the relief image of the enso is quite lovely by itself. The original graphic was created by Marilyn
Reaves. Tilcock gave me this description of an enso — a sumi painting of a circle: “The circle contains both the perfection of
the expressive moment and the imperfections of the ink, page and brush. … Spiritually it may symbolize the emptiness of the
void, the endless circle of life and fullness of the spirit. It may represent the moment of enlightenment, when the mind is free
to let the body or spirit create. …Each esno shows the expressive movement of the spirit in time.”
“It was challenging to work with the words of two writers,” Tilcock said, “trying to have something that works for both but
also be different for each.”
Originally, Tilcock planned to print on gray paper, but black paper kept coming up. Tilcock and her three interns spent the
better part of four or five days mixing different inks, before creating a silver and black ink mix that works on black. Tilcock
was resistant to the idea of a black-on-black broadside, but “Never be afraid to change your mind,” she said.
The black paper selected had to be dampened so that the image didn’t look like a shiny gloss on top of the paper. After
the damp paper dried, the paper “looked like someone came in and scraped it,” Tilcock said. It has body, and the image is in
the paper. However, “It’s more labor-intensive to have to dampen the paper and press wet,” Tilcock said.
“But once I decided to embrace my darkness, it all fell into place,” Tilcock said. “I was reluctant to take that step, to leave
the safe grays and embrace the black. But I am very satisfied with what we’ve chosen.”
Kim Stafford will not see the broadside until the day of the reading, Tilcock said. “It’s very scary,” she said. I don’t think
she has a thing to worry about. ––LW
Dunn speaks at the “In the Mood for Valentine’s
Day” celebration at 7:30 pm on Feb. 6 at the
Downtown Library. …Elijah Wald reads from
Escaping The Delta, on the life of the bluesman
Robert Johnson, at 4pm on Feb. 8 at Tsunami
Books. …Classical scholar and military historian
Victor Davis Hanson speaks on “War and the
West, Then and Now” at 8 pm on Feb. 11 in
Alumni Lounge, Gerlinger Hall, UO campus. …UO
Law professor Steven Bender reads from his
new book, Greasers and Gringos: Latinos, Law
and the American Imagination at 7 pm on Feb. 12
in UO Bookstore. …Ursula Le Guin reads from
The Lathe of Heaven, this year’s Readin’ in the
Rain selection, at 7 pm on Feb. 13 at First
Methodist Church (1376 Olive. Free. …Fundraiser
(donations requested) for Readin’ in the Rain
finds Le Guin at a community book signing from
noon- 4 pm on Feb. 14 at New Zone Gallery
(Broadway and Willamette). Bring no more than
one book to be signed, please. …Writers and
aspiring writers meet with Le Guin from 1 - 4 pm
on Feb. 15 at McNail-Riley House (13 and
Jefferson). Register Jan 15 (302-8084 or 689-
1650). $50. …Marjorie Sandor (Portrait of My
Mother, Who Posed Nude in Wartime) and
Kathleen Tyau (Makai) will read at 7 pm on Feb.
17 in the Downtown Library. …Laurie
Drummond reads from her new story collection,
Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against
You, at 8 pm on Feb. 19 in Knight Library
Browsing Room. …Neale Donald Walsch
(Conversations with God) speaks at 7pm on Feb.
20 at South Eugene High School. $20.… Robert
H. Kono (The River of Time) reads at 1pm on
Feb. 21 at Borders Books. …Joe Kurmaskie,
Portland cycling and travel guru, reads from
Riding Outside the Lines at 7 pm on Feb. 25 in
100 Willamette Hall, UO campus. …Leslie
Leyland Fields reads from her memoir,
Surviving the Island of Grace, at 7 pm on March
2 in Knight Library Browsing Room.
JANUARY 29, 2004 27