Using side-by-side pairings of first drafts and final versions, including full-page reproductions from the poets’ personal notebooks, as well as an insightful essay on each poem’s journey from start to finish, The Art of Revising Poetry tracks the creative process of twenty-one of the United States’ most influential poets as they struggle over a single word, line break, or thought. This behind-the-scenes look into the creative minds of working poets, including African American, Latino, Asian American, and Native poets from across the US, is an essential resource for students practicing poetry, and for instructors looking to enliven the classroom with real world examples. Students learn first-hand from the deft revisions working poets make, while poetry teachers can show in detail how experienced poets self-edit, tinker, cut, rearrange, and craft a poem. The Art of Revising Poetry is a must-have for aspiring poets and poetry teachers at all levels.

The telephone invaded their conversation at just that moment. April turned and looked at the detective. He nodded his head and gave her the go ahead. Visibly quivering she took a deep breath in and picked up the receiver. "Hello?" she questioned the caller in a whisper. Gil jumped up from his seated position and said anxiously, "April " She heard Gil let out a heavy breath. "Thank God you answered; I was wondering what was taking so long for you to call. Let me speak to Renee " "Gil..." O'Keefe pulled the handset out of her hand. "Mr. Thompson?" Hesitantly Gil answered. "Yes. Who is this?" "I'm Detective O'Keefe with the Santa Fe PD," Gil heard the name and froze. "Who? Why are you in my house? What's wrong? Put April back on the phone." "Mr. Thompson. Ms. Hunter is here by me. I need you to listen to me. I need to inform you-" Gil didn't hear what came next. His conscious self detached from his body and he floated. Inform. He felt weak, faint, what now. He didn't comprehend the policeman's words. "Mr. Thompson, are you there, sir?" "What? I'm sorry I didn't hear you. What happened?" "It's your wife, sir..." http: //wreckagebook.tripod.com

Using side-by-side pairings of first drafts and final versions, including full-page reproductions from the poets’ personal notebooks, as well as an insightful essay on each poem’s journey from start to finish, The Art of Revising Poetry tracks the creative process of twenty-one of the United States’ most influential poets as they struggle over a single word, line break, or thought. This behind-the-scenes look into the creative minds of working poets, including African American, Latino, Asian American, and Native poets from across the US, is an essential resource for students practicing poetry, and for instructors looking to enliven the classroom with real world examples. Students learn first-hand from the deft revisions working poets make, while poetry teachers can show in detail how experienced poets self-edit, tinker, cut, rearrange, and craft a poem. The Art of Revising Poetry is a must-have for aspiring poets and poetry teachers at all levels.

In his third poetry collection from Red Hen Press, Kim Stafford gathers poems that sing with empathy, humor, witness, and story. Poems in this book have been set to music, quoted in the New York Times, posted online in the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series, gathered in a chapbook sold to benefit Ukrainian refugees, posted online in response to Supreme Court decisions, composed for a painter's gallery opening, and in other ways engaged a world at war with itself, testifying for the human project hungry for kinship, exiled from bounty, and otherwise thirsting for the oxygen of healing song.

Wind on the Waves is a collection of fifty-two stories that embody the beauty, mystery, and allure of Oregon’s magnificent coast. Written by award-winning author and poet Kim Stafford, these wonderfully written vignettes celebrate the people, towns, wildlife, culture, and natural beauty of one of America’s most rugged, beautiful, and enchanting coast lines. Wind on the Waves evokes the feelings of wonder and joy, the miracle of existence, the significance of humanity—and its insignificance compared to the power of the sea. Being open to the world is a gift—one which Kim Stafford has shared so well. These words from one of Oregon’s most influential writers are the song of life sung on the stage of the shore, and the wind, and the waves.

The five sections in Kim Stafford's Singer Come from Afar hold poems that summon war and peace, pandemic struggles, Earth imperatives, a seeker's spirit, and forge kinship. The former poet laureate of Oregon, Stafford has shared poems from this book in libraries, prisons, on reservations, with veterans, immigrants, homeless families, legislators, and students in schools. He writes for hidden heroes, resonant places, and for our chance to converge in spite of differences. Poems like "Practicing the Complex Yes" and "The Fact of Forgiveness" engineer tools for connection with the self, the community, and the Earth: "It is a given you have failed . . . [but] the world can't keep its treasures from you." For the early months of the pandemic, Stafford wrote and posted a poem for challenge and comfort each day on Instagram and published a series of chapbooks that traveled hand to hand to far places-to Norway, Egypt, and India. He views the writing and sharing of poetry as an essential act of testimony to sustain tikkun olam, the healing of the world. May this book be the hidden spring you seek.

Born the year World War I began, acclaimed poet William Stafford (1914-1993) spent World War II in a camp for conscientious objectors. Throughout a century of conflict he remained convinced that wars simply don't work. In his writings, Stafford showed it is possible-and crucial-to think independently when fanatics act, and to speak for reconciliation when nations take sides. He believed it was a failure of imagination to only see two options: to fight or to run away. This book gathers the evidence of a lifetime's commitment to nonviolence, including an account of Stafford's near-hanging at the hands of American patriots. In excerpts from his daily journal from 1951-1991, Stafford uses questions, alternative views of history, lyric invitations, and direct assessments of our political habits to suggest another way than war. Many of these statements are published here for the first time, together with a generous selection of Stafford's pacifist poems and interviews from elusive sources. Stafford provides an alternative approach to a nation's military habit, aggressive instincts, and our legacy of armed ventures in Europe, the Pacific, Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and beyond.

Wind on the Waves is a collection of fifty-two stories that embody the beauty, mystery, and allure of Oregon’s magnificent coast. Written by award-winning author and poet Kim Stafford, these wonderfully written vignettes celebrate the people, towns, wildlife, culture, and natural beauty of one of America’s most rugged, beautiful, and enchanting coast lines. Wind on the Waves evokes the feelings of wonder and joy, the miracle of existence, the significance of humanity—and its insignificance compared to the power of the sea. Being open to the world is a gift—one which Kim Stafford has shared so well. These words from one of Oregon’s most influential writers are the song of life sung on the stage of the shore, and the wind, and the waves.

Wild Honey, Tough Salt offers a prismatic view of Earth citizenship, where we must now be ambidextrous. The book takes a stern look inward calling for sturdy character and supple spirit, and a bold look outward seeking ways to engage grief trouble. The book begins with poems that witness a buoyant life in a difficult world: wandering New Orleans in a trance, savoring the life of artist Tove Jansson, reading the fine print on the Mexican peso and the Scottish five-pound note. Clues to untapped energy lie everywhere by the lens of poetry. The book then moves to considerations of the worst in us-torture and war: how to recruit a child soldier? How to be married to the heartless guard? What to say to your child who is enamored by bullets? In the third section, the book offers a spangle of poems blessing earth: wren song, bud growth, river's eager way with obstacles. And the final section offers poems of affection: infant clarities of home, long marriage in dog years, a consoling campfire in the yard when all seems lost. The book will soften your trouble, and give you spirit for the days ahead.

The telephone invaded their conversation at just that moment. April turned and looked at the detective. He nodded his head and gave her the go ahead. Visibly quivering she took a deep breath in and picked up the receiver. "Hello?" she questioned the caller in a whisper. Gil jumped up from his seated position and said anxiously, "April " She heard Gil let out a heavy breath. "Thank God you answered; I was wondering what was taking so long for you to call. Let me speak to Renee " "Gil..." O'Keefe pulled the handset out of her hand. "Mr. Thompson?" Hesitantly Gil answered. "Yes. Who is this?" "I'm Detective O'Keefe with the Santa Fe PD," Gil heard the name and froze. "Who? Why are you in my house? What's wrong? Put April back on the phone." "Mr. Thompson. Ms. Hunter is here by me. I need you to listen to me. I need to inform you-" Gil didn't hear what came next. His conscious self detached from his body and he floated. Inform. He felt weak, faint, what now. He didn't comprehend the policeman's words. "Mr. Thompson, are you there, sir?" "What? I'm sorry I didn't hear you. What happened?" "It's your wife, sir..." http: //wreckagebook.tripod.com

OUT OF BOUNDS is a first-person, true story of conscience and courage that you ll never forget. In 1941, before Pearl Harbor, life was uncertain. Would America remain at peace as Europe went to war? What would the new peacetime draft mean to American men between the ages of 21 and 35, now required to register with the Selective Service and prepare themselves for military service? Chuck Worley was in college then and, like several thousand other Americans, in the process of making up his mind to become a conscientious objector (CO). A new national system of Civilian Public Service (CPS) work camps awaited men like Worley. After being drafted and granted CO status, he tried to fit into the CPS system and its work of national importance. But he felt the goals of the program fell short, and he walked out. Soon he found himself in the custody of U.S. Marshals, eventually winding up in Sandstone Federal Prison in Minnesota. OUT OF BOUNDS collects Worley s WW II journal-like letters and poems from his time in prison. His writing provides a moving, thoughtful, heartfelt, and provocative look at the 1940s prison system in America, and what it meant to be a war resister during WW II. Prison was a lonely world for a newly married young man. Worley and his CO friends organized themselves for protests and strikes, faced solitary confinement and abuse, and fought for desegregation of the prison, all the while working to gain their freedom. Their strategies included non-cooperation, writing manifestos, and conducting hunger strikes (which led to being force-fed by the guards). Worley s letters convey the loneliness, isolation, and struggle of fighting against the system. They also convey his love to his young bride, and we get a close-up look at how they struggled to build a life together when separated by war. OUT OF BOUNDS is a brave personal statement about one conscientious objector s response to the Good War, and it is a lasting testament to the power of one man's refusal to abandon his beliefs against the backdrop of a world at war.

"The Muses Among Us" is an inviting, encouraging book for writers at any stage of their development. In a series of first-person letters, essays, manifestos, and notes to the reader, Kim Stafford shows what might happen at the creative boundary he calls "what we almost know." On the boundary's far side is our story, our poem, our song. On this side are the resonant hunches, griefs, secrets, and confusions from which our writing will emerge. Guiding us from such glimmerings through to a finished piece are a wealth of experiments, assignments, and tricks of the trade that Stafford has perfected over thirty years of classes, workshops, and other gatherings of writers.

Informing "The Muses Among Us" are Stafford's own convictions about writing--principles to which he returns again and again. We must, Stafford says, honor the fragments, utterances, and half-discovered truths voiced around us, for their speakers are the prophets to whom writers are scribes. Such filaments of wisdom, either by themselves or alloyed with others, give rise to our poems, stories, and essays. In addition, as Stafford writes, "all pleasure in writing begins with a sense of abundance--rich knowledge and boundless curiosity." By recommending ways for students to seek beyond the self for material, Stafford demystifies the process of writing and claims for it a Whitmanesque quality of participation and community.