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MAKE MATTERS VERSE
KENDRICK MOHOLT PHOTO
Kim Stafford, named Oregon’s Poet Laureate in 2018.
Oregon Poet Laureate Kim Stafford reads, discusses craft at Cannon Beach Library
By ERICK BENGEL
FOR COAST WEEKEND
A
s Oregon’s Poet Laureate,
Kim Stafford wants nothing
less than to save the world.
His means: bringing forth
people’s voices — by “doing all
I can to abolish reticence, and
help people tell their stories, their
feelings, their dreams and ideas,”
he said in an email exchange with
Coast Weekend.
Stafford will drop by the Cannon
Beach Library on Sunday, Oct. 21,
as part of the Northwest Author
Series.
He plans to read from books he’s
published on “reconciliation, earth
connection, consolation, and bless-
ing,” he said. He’ll also discuss
“the process of writing to enhance
the life of the writer, and the health
of the community.”
Stafford, an assistant profes-
sor at Lewis & Clark College in
Portland, is director of the college’s
Northwest Writing Institute. His
father, William Stafford, served as
the state’s Poet Laureate from 1975
to 1990, and, before that, as U.S.
Poet Laureate from 1970 to ’71.
A prolific author of poems,
essays, fiction and nonfiction, Kim
said he prefers to write about rela-
tionships: “who I am to who I think
I am … who I am to who I was …
who I am to where I am … who we
are to who we might be,” he said.
“Along the way, images and pro-
cesses from the natural world often
help me tell human stories.”
Calling Kim Stafford one of
Oregon’s “most generous liter-
ary teachers,” Gov. Kate Brown
said when she appointed him last
summer: “There are many ways to
serve this state and among them is
clarity of language and passion of
purpose, which may travel from
one soul to another through poetry.”
Serving the human story
Growing up, Kim was more
privy to his father’s product than
his process. The elder Stafford
would write early in the morning
— at 3 or 4 a.m. — “so I only saw
Continued on Page 13
Northwest Authors
Series presents
Kim Stafford,
Oregon’s Poet
Laureate
When: 2 p.m.
Sunday, Oct. 21
Where: Cannon
Beach Library,
131 N. Hemlock St.
Free and open to the
public