To be a discoverer you hold close whatever you find
and after a while you decide what it is and then,
secure in where you have been, you turn to the open sea and let go.
~ William Stafford
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Formerly Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, William Stafford (1914 - 1993) was 48 when he published Traveling Through the Dark, his first major collection of poetry, which, in 1963, was awarded a National Book Award. Stafford went on to publish more than five dozen books of poetry and prose, including Stories That Could Be True: New and Collected Poems (1977), Kansas Poems of William Stafford (1990), Writing the Australian Crawl (Poets on Poetry, 1978), Learning to Live in the World: Earth Poems (1994), the Darkness Around Us Is Deep: Selected Poems (1994), and Even in Quiet Places (1996).
A complete bibliography is here. A selection of Stafford's poems is here. Several videos featuring Stafford are available here.
Go here for an interview with Stafford, published in Modern American Poetry.
have a beautiful day holding close all you've found and setting yourself free on the open seas of adventure.
ReplyDeleteI love this quote. :-) Have a great day.
ReplyDelete"'You don't have to
ReplyDeleteprove anything,' my mother said. 'Just be ready
for what God sends.
wm. stafford
More than great quote for life. :)
ReplyDeleteThe sun, the earth, the sky, all wait.
ReplyDeleteThe crowns and redbirds talk. The light
along the hills has come, has found you.
William Stafford