An Encounter with William Stafford

By David Feela

A meeting one author will never forget.

A life that gives rise to 51 books in the short span of 79 years can certainly be regarded as literary. William Stafford lived such a life. But Stafford was also a man who refused to occupy a literary pulpit for the sake of preaching to the masses. Stafford's life stood for a quieter way, a daily ritual of writing that produced not only a legacy of remarkable poems but also a way of thinking about the process that creates poems. James Dickey called William Stafford one of those poets "who pour out rivers of ink, all on good poems." T...