TRAVELING THROUGH THE DARK.

by William Stafford

GOOD VINTAGE 1962 HARDCOVER, NAME BLACKED OUT. COVER CLEAN, PAGES CLEAN AND FLAT. BINDING TIGHT. PROTECTIVE COVERING OVER DUST JACKET. SHIPS FROM WA- USPS. HARPER AND ROW, 1962. William Stafford- William Edgar Stafford was an American poet and pacifist. He was the father of poet and essayist Kim Stafford. He was appointed the twentieth Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1970. Fiction; General; Poetry

Genres: Poetry, Classics, 20th Century

103 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

William Edgar Stafford was an American poet and pacifist, and the father of poet and essayist Kim Stafford. He and his writings are sometimes identified with the Pacific Northwest.

In 1970, he was named Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, a position that is now known as Poet Laureate. In 1975, he was named Poet Laureate of Oregon; his tenure in the position lasted until 1990. In 1980, he retired from Lewis & Clark College but continued to travel extensively and give public readings of his poetry. In 1992, he won the Western States Book Award for lifetime achievement in poetry.


Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William...

Reviews

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

William Edgar Stafford is a poet who should be read more often and more well known. Some of the greatest gems are those that don't flash bright lights manufactured by publishers or those with money 'in the day' - Some of Stafford's poetry are personal favorites of mine. My copy of "Traveling Through The Dark" is a cherished collection. Highly recommend to anyone who is ready to hear a new and unique voice that you haven't heard anywhere else.

[John Orman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This small book is comprised of poems mainly written in the 1950's by the late William Stafford, formerly the Poet Laureate of Oregon.

"In the Night Desert" has a subtle tribute to the Native American lifestyle, with lines like:

"The Apache word for love twists
then numbs the tongue.
One more word that spins in the dust:
a talk-flake chipped like obsidian."

I like the title for the poem "The Only Card I Got on My Birthday Was from an Insurance Man." That one has the lines:
"When I die,
my glance drawn over galaxies,
all through one night let a candle nurse the dark
to mark this instant of what I was.
We want real friends or none."

One wonders if these words passed through the poet's mind around the time of his death in 1993.

In "Vocation," Stafford reflects on his parents, and has his father say: "Your job is to find what the world is trying to be."
From the poems in this collection, I would say William Stafford has done that job well!

[Kiki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing!!!! Certainly one of the most unique and moving poetry books I've had the pleasure of reading. Highly accessible in terms of language, but at times it became difficult to create a larger picture out of Stafford's vivid picture-box worlds. I will be obtaining a new copy to annotate - these are poems you can't read just once!

[Nathan Albright · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is said that there are more poets than there are readers of poetry, and if this statement is even close to being true that is a great shame, especially in the case of the wonderful poetry of William Stafford [1].  In this short selection of deeply heartfelt and generally brief poems we see the reflections of Stafford's physical and mental travels, his reflections on creation as well as his musings on death.  Many of these poems read like distillations of the sort of stories you would tell to people while undertaking a road trip or while sitting around a campfire and trying to find the most unsettling but deeply thoughtful stories one could summon up from the banks of one's memory and imagination.  Some people may be able to do this through their own resources as poets and storytellers, but even for those who think that they lack this gift of reflection, these poems (and others) by William Stafford provide a thoughtful and sustained example of what a poet can create who views the incidents of life as the raw material for reflections on life and death, love and hate, and the inexorable passage of time as well as the power of choice and the refusal to choose.

This collection of poems is about 100 pages long and is divided into three parts.  The first part of the book is entitled:  In Medias Res and includes such excellent poems as "Thinking For Berky," the opening title poem, "The Research Team in the Mountains," and other poems that reflect upon life and the relationship between mankind and creation.  Among the more dryly comic poems in this section is a discussion of "The Poets' Annual Indigence Report," as well as the poet's thoughts "On Quitting a Little College," both of which reflect on the relationship between the intellectual and material world.  The second part of the book is titled "Before The Big Storm" and it looks at life and death and animals and even a couple of poems about museums, hardly the most common source material for poetry.  Here again there are dryly humorous nods to places and situations, such as a reflection on memory called "The Only Card I Got on My Birthday Was from an Insurance Man," which is definitely a memorable title.  The third and final part of the book is called "Representing Far Places" and it looks at vacations and vocations and the distance between people and each other as well as people and creation, and even perhaps people and themselves.

One thing that makes the poetry of William Stafford so remarkable is the way that he pays attention to that which a lot of people pass over in embarrassed silence.  Whether dealing with the ridicule and awkwardness endured by children who are "different" in school by virtue of missing parents or being a bit slow to catch what others grasp rapidly.  Over and over again in these poems we see the perspective of the underdog, whether it is the indigent poet or the chicken struggling in a death match against the weasel or a  traveler on a road trying not to get run over by drivers while trying to dispose of the body of a dead doe with an unborn fawn inside of her and pondering on the wasted life that means.  These poems are rich in detail but also compact, not trying the patience of the reader but providing enough specificity to spark the reader into thoughts and reflections of his or her own.  These are relatively contemporary poems that are well-worth the time and effort it takes to read them and that richly repay such study and reflection.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014...

[Cassandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me two years to read this book, which is a very long time, but I am glad I took it. Stafford's poetry is so deceptively simple (even in this first of his books which has some of the more Audenesque pieces) that it is easy to just rush through, reading for the almost prose-like sense of it and not bothering to linger over the sound or the pacing of the ideas. I still do not have a proper aesthetics of poetry, so it is difficult for me to explain what it is I liked about these, but many of them I did like, and read four or five times, trying to move into the space so that I could touch what it evoked for me more clearly.

Here is one:

Things We Did That Meant Something (1958)

Thin as memory to a bloodhound’s nose,
being the edge of some new knowing,
I often glance at a winter color--
husk or stalk, a sunlight touch,
maybe a wasp nest in the brush
near the winter river with silt like silver.

Once with a slingshot I hit a wasp nest:—
without direction but sure of right,
released from belief and into act,
hornets planed off by their sincere faith.
Vehement response for them was enough,
patrolling my head with its thought like a moth:—

"Sometime the world may be hit like this
or I getting lost may walk toward this color
far in old sunlight with no trace at all,
till only the grass will know I fall.”

[SmarterLilac · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book that enlightened me to the depth and beauty of Stafford's writing.

[Hope · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some brilliant imagery, but the poems are often obtuse.

[Mark]

COCc PS3537.T143 T7 1962

[Doug · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best American Poet's of the last half of the 20th century

[Sara]

per CoR