Crossing Unmarked Snow: Further Views on the Writer's Vocation

Poets on Poetry

by William Stafford, Paul Merchant (Editor), Vincent Wixon (Editor)

"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."
-- William Stafford
A plain-spoken but eminently effective poet, the late William Stafford (1914-1993) has managed to shape part of the mainstream of American poetry by distancing himself from its trends and politics. Though his work has always inspired controversy, he was widely admired by students and poetry lovers as well as his own peers. His fascination with the process of writing joined with his love of the land and his faith in the teaching power of nature to produce a unique poetic voice in the last third of the twentieth century.
Crossing Unmarked Snow continues--in the tradition of Stafford's well-loved collections Writing the Australian Crawl and You Must Revise Your Life -- collecting prose and poetry on the writer's profession. The book includes reviews and reflections on poets from Theodore Roethke to Carolyn Forche, from May Sarton to Philip Levine; conversations on the making of poems; and a selection of Stafford's own poetry. The book also includes a section on the art of teaching, featuring interviews, writing exercises, and essays on the writer's vocation.
William Stafford authored more than thirty-five books of poetry and prose during his lifetime, including the highly acclaimed Writing the Australian Views on the Writer's Vocation and You Must Revise Your Life .

Genres: Poetry

168 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

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

[Nathan Albright · Rating 5 out of 5]

The last two stanzas of the poem “Tuned In Late One Night” that open this book demonstrate both the approach of William Stafford to writing and my own appreciation of him as a poet [1]:

It’s like this, truth is: it’s looking out while everything
happens; being in a place of your own,
between your ears; and any person
you face will get the full encounter
of your self. When you hear any news
you ought to register delight or pain
depending on where you really live.

Now I am fading, with this ambition:
to read with my brights full on,
to write on a clear glass typewriter,
to listen with sympathy,
to speak like a child.”

There are several different kinds of writers. Some writers are insomniacs who write out of the darkness of night, unable to sleep because of the restlessness of their minds. Other writers are writers of the afternoon, enjoying a peaceful siesta in the heat of summer and writing languid and limp lines in the heat of the day. Some writers, like William Stafford, are writers of the morning, waking up at 4:30AM in order to write in those precious and fleeting moments of freedom before the darkness gives way to the dawn and the responsibilities of the waking world [2], a choice of writing time Stafford made because it allowed him the freedom to write before his obligations to the worker’s camps where he spent World War II as a conscientious objector. Each type of writing carries with it its own purpose and its own context, and Stafford, as a reflective thinker as well as a profound poet, shares examples of his work as well as a coherent approach to poetry in this slim (150 page) but deep work.

This book is divided into three parts. The first part focuses on the process of daily journaling that the prolific poet (Stafford is known to have written about 22,000 poems during the course of his productive life, even though he only published his first work of poetry when he was almost 50 years old) undertook as a way of capturing insights in the ordinary course of life and then doing the revising work to polish them and refine them. His poem “What’s in My Journal” on page 23 of this work expresses my own attitude and mix of perspectives as a writer:

“Odd things, like a button drawer. Mean
things, fishhooks, barbs in your hand.
But marbles too. A genius for being agreeable.
Junkyard crucifixes, voluptuous
discards. Space for knickknacks, and for
Alaska. Evidence to hang me, or to beautify.
Clues that lead nowhere, that never connected
anyway. Deliberate obfuscation, the kind
that takes genius. Chasms in character.
Loud omissions. Mornings that yawn above
a new grave. Pages you know exist
but you can’t find them. Someone’s terribly
inevitable life story, maybe mine.”

The second part of this book contains some of the author’s thoughts on other writers. As is the case with Stafford’s poetry, his literary criticism likes to let the authors speak for themselves with their own voice rather than attempting to foist an analysis onto them, and he shows a dissatisfaction with literary critics who are too keen in distilling the rich and diverse and often complicated strains of poetry into easy and pat solutions. However, he is generally tolerant and benevolent towards the beauty of poets of many different kinds of voices, refusing to label certain kinds of poets as beautiful and certain as ugly, but rather praising the authenticity of a poet to their own voice, and the dedication to the hard work of being honest with one’s self and one’s world but also kind to others. Of one poet, he says the following on page 58 of this work: “It is difficult to overstate the alienation this writer works from; he gives ordinary readers a view of the place of the absolutist, of the principled rebel. This is not to say that his stance is one of moral superiority; but he has taken the much-contemplated step of saying no to the state, and has been imprisoned for it. That passionate individuality referred to earlier resulted in long-suffering rebellion, in circumstances which continue to test individual values.” Indeed, his criticism is pointed, but honest, and when it comes to fellow poets, generally kind as well as perceptive, of the model we should all aspire to as literary critics.

The third section involves Stafford’s attitudes about writing workshops, both those he leads as a teacher as well as those in which he participates from others. As is often the case, he strives for a balance between the honest expression of feeling as well as the details that fix our thoughts and feelings to the earth, that keep life from becoming a mere abstraction and that allow us a fleeting glimpse of what makes ourselves and others tick. Stafford was known for his “no praise, no criticism” way of teaching writing, where he did not want students to either write for his adoration and lose track of their own voice nor want his students to be so burdened by their fears of judgment and rejection that they refused to pick up the pen in the first place and let the river of ink pour out of their hearts, minds, and souls in the first place. Stafford found his own muse in that balance between a child-like openness to experience and insight in small moments and ordinary situations and a deep and private sense of reflection upon those experiences, to let thoughts wander this way and that, the way a placid dairy cow gently and persistently chews her cud to make sure her meal of pasture grass or barn hay is fully digested.

It is striking that this book is the third book about the writer’s craft that William Stafford wrote. I have yet to read the other two, but based on this one they would provide a mixture of clever insight, breathtakingly beautiful poetry, and prosaic wisdom deeply bound up with the ordinary habits and experiences of thoughtful and creative people. For some reason writers often feel compelled to justify their craft in a way that would seem entirely redundant for lawyers or engineers or businessmen who would take offense to having to defend their legitimacy in ways that a musician or artist or writer feels compelled to do so often. As Stafford is quick to note, we do not write primarily for money, or for fame, or even for praise. We are writers because writing is what we do, because we have an inner voice longing to make itself heard, if only to ourselves. Yet, if we are fortunate, as William Stafford surely was, our works will be worthy of enduring long after we are dead and buried, echoing throughout the reflections and understanding of those who come after us and who will take up our mantle and tilt against their own windmills. As Stafford said himself in “An Afternoon In The Stacks,” on page 49 of this work:

…“When this book ends
I will pull it inside-out like a sock
and throw it back in the library. But the rumor
of it will haunt all that follows in my life.”

What more could any writer ask for than that?

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...

[2] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

William Stafford gets to the heart of the writer's mind in these thoughtful, sometimes funny essays. I turn to Stafford when I need to not take myself or my writing process so seriously and to get back into the zen of the thing. The way you simply let your consciousness get into that odd and resonant place of poetry, without caring if you ever write another good word. He is a master of letting the poem back into you unexpectedly.

[Michael Bozmarov · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very fun book to read. Stafford’s style is poetry even when writing prose. He thinks in poems, and that shows. However, his postmodern theory of education is a bit tiresome at this point. Still a good book worth reading for his encouragement and style alone.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

The third in a series of several books about William Stafford in the Poets on Poetry series.

Edited after his death, I found it to be a much more engrossing examination of Stafford's ideas on the writing and teaching of poetry than the first two in the series. This book is broken up into shorter sections and so it seems less ponderous to me.

Stafford wrote every morning. Some say he wrote too much. But Stafford would say "When faced with writer's block, lower your standards and keep writing." For him, the writing was the thing, and it was okay to write through less successful poems on the way to more successful ones.

[John Orman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oregon Poet William Stafford has had a long fascination with the process of writing, which he combined with his love of the land and faith in the teaching power of nature.

This book includes reviews of poets and conversations on the making of poems, as well as several essays on the writing process. Also included are some of Stafford's poetry, including his well known "Traveling in the Dark" and "Ask Me."

Some Staffordian words of wisdom:

"A poem knows where you already are, and it nails you there."

"Always do your writing in the wilderness."

"Language can do what it can't say."

[Tiah Keever · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm digging it. Stafford is an interesting writer.