WILLIAM STAFFORD - TYPED LETTER SIGNED 01/21/1979 - HFSID 206155

WILLIAM STAFFORD
From his office at Lewis & Clark College, he responds to a fan working on a poetry project.
Typed letter signed: "William Stafford", 1p, 8½x11. Portland, Oregon, January 21, 1979. From his desk at Lewis & Clark College, To "Dear John Norbutt" in full: "This note is in response to your of January 10., explaining your project and raising some questions about poetry. I'd like to respond as directly and helpfully as I can. About 'lastingly important' in relation to poetry, I think that the feelings of all of us establish whether something has that lasting significance: if we find that our lives relate and get stronger or more interesting from involvement with someone else or something else, then we feel the importance there. And only that poetry which gets from us a natural and positive reaction has importance. As for 'create' or 'born' in relation to a poet, my feeling that we all have what it takes--feelings, some involvement with language. Some people give time and attention to poetry; and if they lend their lives to it it will give back something--whether others will have a high regard for the result is not very significant. Poetry is a an individual's, not a society's, possession; and everyone must judge and assess in terms of individual feelings. Let me add that my own work, to me, falls within what I just said: I write, but I do not assume that others will necessarily find it good. I send it out; if others like it, fine. If not--I just keep on writing! So long". William Edgar Stafford (1914-1993) was an American poet, author of over 57 volumes of poetry including West of Your City (1960), The Rescued Year (1965) and Traveling Through the Dark (1962) which won the National Book Award for Poetry. A highly literate farm boy from a Kansas, Stafford achieved success late in life, having spent the majority of his early years working hard labor jobs. During the Depression he was one of the main contributors in his household, and during WWII, declaring himself a pacifist, he was assigned to woodland work for the duration of the war, earning just $2.50 a month. After receiving his bachelors and masters degrees from the University of Kansas, he found work as a professor at Lewis & Clark College where he taught from 1958 to 1980. With the success of Traveling Through the Dark, Stafford was later appointed Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1970. In 1975 he was made Poet Laureate of Oregon. In his retirement from Lewis & Clark he continued to write poetry, adding to his 50 year daily journal in which he composed 20,000 poems (some 3,000 of which were published). His last lines, written the morning he died, read, "'You don't have to / prove anything,' my mother said. 'Just be ready / for what God sends." In 2008, the Stafford family gave his writings to the Special Collections Department at Lewis& Clark College. He is the father of writer Kim Stafford, who published the memoir Early Morning: Remembering my Father, William Stafford. Normal mailing folds. Slightly creased. Otherwise, fine condition.