William Stafford
William Stafford
Prolific American poet and 1970 U.S. Poet Laureate who won the National Book Award for Traveling Through the Dark. His numerous other works include In the Clock of Reason, Brother Wind, Passwords, and Wyoming Circuit.
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth17 January 1914
CountryUnited States of America
dream matter save somewhere
When I dream at night, they save a place for me, no matter how small, somewhere by the fire.
arrows cloak hidden name touch william
My name is William Tell: when little oppressions touch me arrows hidden in my cloak whisper, "Ready, ready.
contend evidence living
I am a person a dictionary-maker has to contend with. I am a living evidence in the development of language.
comforts goes good great lost sleep wall
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.
bucket cool memory
Let the bucket of memory down into the well,bring it up. Cool, cool minutes. No onestirring, no plans. Just being there.
comforts goes good great wall
A great snug wall goes around everything,has always been there, will alwaysremain. It is a good world to belost in. It comforts you. It isall right. And you sleep.
butterfly discovery experience
I embrace emerging experience, I participate in discovery. I am a butterfly. I am not a butterfly collector. I want the experience of the butterfly.
rivers waiting silence
You and I can turn and look at the silent river and wait. We know the current is there, hidden; and there are comings and goings from miles away that hold the stillness exactly before us. What the river says, that is what I say.
owl ears sound
An owl sound wandered along the road with me. I didn't hear it--I breathed it into my ears.
rivers topics kind
I keep following this sort of hidden river of my life, you know, whatever the topic or impulse which comes, I follow it along trustingly. And I don't have any sense of its coming to a kind of crescendo, or of its petering out either. It is just going steadily along.
legends way world
So, the world happens twice-- once what we see it as; second it legends itself deep, the way it is.
breathe rhythm
Anyone who breathes is in the rhythm business.
ownership glances
The greatest ownership of all is to glance around and understand.
snow quality done
It is this impulse to change the quality of experience that I recognize as central to creation. . . . Out of all that could be done, you choose one thing. What that one thing is, nothing else can tell you--you come at it over unmarked snow.