Ask Me: 100 Essential Poems of William Stafford
Stafford (1914-93) was a phenomenon. In his lifetime, more than 4,000 of his poems appeared in magazines, and he published 50 books (10 more appeared posthumously). According to the preface by his son, Kim, he wrote roughly 20,000 poems. He won the National Book Award in 1963, served as the Poetry Consultant to the Library of Congress in 1970–71, and was appointed Oregon State Poet Laureate in 1975. In this selection of one-hundred poems published to celebrate his centenary, Stafford emerges as an allegorist, a messenger. Even in poems that deal with specific events, such as “At the Klamath Berry Festival” and “At the Grave of My Brother,” the sense is of unity, of truth discovered, hidden, or avoided. The title of the opening poem is telling: “A Story That Could Be True.” Though Stafford’s range can seem narrow, and his home truths can shade into platitude, these poised poems are revealing without being explicit, as in the final line of the justly famous title poem, “What the river says, that is what I say.” --Michael Autrey