Oregon Poet William Stafford Still Hugely Popular - 15 Years After His Death

The Oregonian celebrates William Stafford's poetry, a decade and a half since he died.

Do you know Stafford's work? You should. His most famous poem is probably this one:

Traveling Through the Dark

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.

By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.

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.

The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.

I thought hard for us all--my only swerving--,
then pushed her over the edge into the river.

My mother, when a student at Lewis & Clark University in Portland, had Stafford as her professor. She received a C. I wrote Stafford a letter when I started getting into poetry myself for a couple of reasons...
1) To chastise him for giving my mom a C in his class.
2) To show him one of my own poems.

The poem I wrote him was Stafford-esque but terrible because I was just starting getting into poetry myself and it was terrible. Something along the lines of...

The salmon jump over starbursts
at twilight as the wind reveals secrets
about the way of things

He wrote back. It was great. He apologized for his grading of my mom "Forgive me for my faulty teachings." He sent me a poem he had scribbled out that very morning. He applauded me for my poem. Of course he was being nice (it was a terrible poem) but it boosted a young man's ego.

Stafford died soon after. I still have that letter and I still, whenever I wander into a bookstore, check to see what Stafford books they have in stock.

A couple more poems of his I've always liked...

Waking at 3 AM

Even in the cave of the night when you
wake and are free and lonely,
neglected by others, discarded, loved only
by what doesn't matter—even in that
big room no one can see,
you push with your eyes till forever
comes in its twisted figure eight
and lies down in your head.

You think water in the river;
you think slower than the tide in
the grain of the wood; you become
a secret storehouse that saves the country,
so open and foolish and empty.

You look over all that the darkness
ripples across. More than has ever
been found comforts you. You open your
eyes in a vault that unlocks as fast
and as far as your thought can run.
A great snug wall goes around everything,
has always been there, will always
remain. It is a good world to be
lost in. It comforts you. It is
all right. And you sleep.

And another, and my all-time favorite Stafford poem...

For My Young Friends Who Are Afraid

There is a country to cross you will
find in the corner of your eye, in
the quick slip of your foot—air far
down, a snap that might have caught.
And maybe for you, for me, a high, passing
voice that finds its way by being
afraid. That country is there, for us,
carried as it is crossed. What you fear
will not go away: it will take you into
yourself and bless you and keep you.
That's the world, and we all live there.