Synopses & Reviews
A volume in the Poets on Poetry series, which collects critical works by contemporary poets, gathering together the articles, interviews, and book reviews by which they have articulated the poetics of a new generation.
In this fourth collection of reflections on writing and the writing life, the late William Stafford's lifelong refusal to separate his work from the task of living responsibly -- "What a person is shows up in what a person does" -- rings clear.
The Answers Are Inside the Mountains collects unpublished interviews, poems, articles, aphorisms, and writing exercises from this great American man of letters and hugely prolific author, who kept a journal for nearly half a century and produced over 20,000 poems -- a staggering output by any standard.
The book begins with the words "To overwhelm by rightness," a phrase evoking the two demands Stafford made on himself: to write daily, and to live uprightly. The Answers Are Inside the Mountains lives up to those deceptively simple ethics, and confirms William Stafford's enduringly important voice for our uncertain age.
William Stafford (1914-93) authored more than thirty-five books of poetry and prose, including the highly acclaimed Writing the Australian Crawl, You Must Revise Your Life, Crossing Unmarked Snow: Further Views on the Writer's Vocation, and Traveling Through the Dark, winner of the National Book Award for Poetry.
Synopsis
In this posthumous collection of his meditations on writing and the writing life, William Stafford's lifelong refusal to separate his work from the task of living responsibly -- "What a person is shows up in what a person does" -- rings clear.
Stafford kept a journal for nearly half a century and produced over 20,000 poems -- a treasure trove of writing still being uncovered long after his death.
The book begins with the words "To overwhelm by rightness," a phrase evoking the two demands Stafford made on himself: to write well, and to live uprightly. This book lives up to those deceptively simple ethics. In his words William Stafford lives on as a voice for our times -- a bright light in a clouded age.
William Stafford, who died in 1993, authored more than thirty-five books of poetry and prose during his lifetime, including the highly acclaimed Writing the Australian Crawl: Views on the Writer's Vocation, You Must Revise Your Life, and Traveling Through the Dark, winner of the National Book Award for Poetry.
Synopsis
A gathering of poems, articles, aphorisms, writing exercises, and interviews from this prolific and venerable author