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What  William  Stafford  Taught  Me  at  100  

By  Mark  Putney  

My  hands  pulsed  on  the  drive  back  from  the  post  office  as  they  grasped  the  steering  

wheel,  knowing  the  letter,  seated  in  the  passenger  seat,  contained  my  future.  I  glanced  back  

and  forth  from  East  End  Road  to  the  fold  of  paper,  making  sure  it  was  still  there,  the  

University  of  Oregon  “O”  emblazoned  in  the  left  corner.    Turning  into  the  driveway,  past  the  

dead  ferns  and  Sitka  Spruce,  I  lurched  to  a  stop  and  met  my  wife  in  the  kitchen.    

“Here  it  is,”  I  said,  holding  the  envelope.  We  both  smiled  and  looked  down–  two  kids  

at  the  edge  of  the  high  dive.  I  ripped  open  the  fold  and  began  reading.    

“Dear  Mark,    

  Thank  you  for  applying  for  the  English  doctoral  program.  We  had  many  

qualified  applicants  and  the  decision  was  difficult.  We  regret  to  inform  you…”    

I  finished  reading  and  set  the  correspondence  down.    

“Wow,  “I  said,  followed  by  a  grunt,  a  sigh,  a  silence.    

My  wife  was  tender  and  warm.  Emily  knew  I  was  set  back,  but  showed  no  

disappointment  in  me.  The  rejection,  however,  soaked  in.    I  failed.      

I  was  becoming  a  writer.  

Every  Morning  All  Over  Again    

Only  the  world  guides  me.    Weather  pushes,  or  when  it  entices  I  follow.  Some  kind  of  magnetism    turns  me  when  I  am  walking  in  the  woods  with  no  intentions.      There  are  leadings  without  any    reason,  but  they  attract;    if  I  find  there  is  nothing  to  gain  from  them,  I  still  follow—their  power  

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is  the  power  of  the  surrounding  world.      But  things  that  promise,  or  those  that  will  serve  my  purposes—they    interfere  with  the  pure  wind  from  nowhere  that  sustains  a  kite,    or  a  gull,  or  a  free  spirit.      So,  afloat  again  every  morning,    I  find  the  current:  all  the  best  rivers  have  secret  channels  that    you  have  to  find  by  whispering  like  this,  and  then  hear  them  and  follow.    

(You  Must  Revise  Your  Life  86)    

William  Stafford  rose  early,  nearly  every  morning  of  his  life,  and  rested  in  solitude,  

then  wrote.  Of  course,  some  mornings  he  wrote,  “Travelling  Through  the  Dark,”  or  

“Fifteen,”  but  other  mornings  he  wrote  about  Dorothy,  his  wife,  about  the  rain  or  his  jog,  or  

about  colleagues  at  Lewis  and  Clark.  He  wrote  poems,  aphorisms,  questions  –  some  of  these  

took  root  and  became  published  works,  but  others  stayed  in  his  “compost  heap”  (Writing  

the  Australian  Crawl  10).  Stafford  welcomed  his  thoughts  and  his  self  when  he  sat  down,  

sipping  instant  coffee  at  5:00  a.m.  

Describing  his  daily  practice,  he  writes,  “So,  receptive,  careless  of  failure,  I  spin  out  

things  on  the  page.  And  a  wonderful  freedom  comes.  If  something  occurs  to  me,  it  is  all  

right  to  accept  it.  It  has  one  justification:  it  occurs  to  me.  No  one  else  can  guide  me.  I  must  

follow  my  own  weak,  wandering,  diffident  impulses”  (Petersen  15).  For  Stafford,  the  

process  of  writing  was  liberating  and  imaginative.  It  was  a  generative  exercise,  a  constant  

motion,  a  “forward  feeling”  (“Fifteen”).    When  doubts  about  the  quality  of  his  writing  

emerged,  Stafford  squashed  these  perfectionist  impulses.  He  writes,  “I  must  be  willing  to  

fail.  If  I  am  to  keep  on  writing,  I  cannot  bother  to  insist  on  high  standards”  (Petersen  15).  

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Failure  isn’t  something  to  flee  from,  I  realized.  Stafford  submitted  his  now  famous  poem,  

“Traveling  Through  the  Dark”  16  times  and  published  roughly  one  out  of  every  ten  of  his  

poems.    The  rest,  he  writes,  “find  themselves  coming  home  permanently  to  roost”  (Writing  

the  Australian  Crawl  10).    

Writing  to  publish,  to  earn  a  proficient  grade,  or  to  achieve  a  Ph.D  are  not  the  point,  

according  to  Stafford;  rather,  writing  to  discover,  wander,  search,  these  are  the  motives  to  

sit  down  and  scratch  a  few  words  and  sentences  together.  When  I  feel  inadequate  as  a  

writer,  or  sense  perfectionism  creeping  into  my  prose,  stifling  my  ability  to  compose  or  

think,  I  lower  my  standards  and  embrace  what  bubbles  up.      

What  is  Writing  For:  Stafford  in  the  Schools  

Accountability    Cold  nights  outside  the  tavern  in  Wyoming,    pickups  and  big  semi’s  lounge  idling,  letting  their    haunches  twitch  now  and  then  in  gusts  of  powder  snow,    their  owners  inside  for  hours,  forgetting  as  well    as  they  can  the  miles,  the  circling  plains,  the  still  town    that  connects  to  nothing  but  cold  and  space  and  a  few    stray  ribbons  of  pavement,  icy  guides  to  nothing  but  bigger  towns  and  other  taverns  that  glitter  and  wait:  Denver,  Cheyenne.      Hibernating  in  the  library  of  the  school  on  the  hill  a  few  pieces  by  Thomas  Aquinas  or  saint  Teresa  and  the  fragmentary  explorations  of  people  like  Alfred  North  Whitehead  crouch  and  wait  amid  research  folders    on  energy  and  military  recruitment  posters  glimpsed    by  the  hard  stars.  The  school  bus  by  the  door,  a  yellow    mound,  clangs  open  and  shut  as  the  wind  finds  a  loose  door  and  worries  it  all  night,  letting  the  hollow    students  count  off  and  break  up  and  blow  away    over  the  frozen  ground.    

              (You  Must  Revise  Your  Life  86)  

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“When  I  write,  grammar  is  my  enemy,”  Stafford  writes  (Writing  the  Australian  Crawl  

22).  I  read  this  multiple  times  to  make  sure  it  was  true.  As  a  writer,  I’m  inspired  by  Stafford;  

as  a  Language  Arts  teacher,  I’m  troubled.  Sure,  all  this  writing  and  invention  and  welcoming  

sounds  terrific,  but  what  about  the  standards?  Isn’t  my  job  to  help  students  read  and  write  

more  critically  and  clearly?  Shouldn’t  they  be  able  to  punctuate  and  identify  introductory  

elements  and  edit  comma  splices?    In  response  to  these  demands,  I  wonder  if  Stafford’s    

writing  process  might  captivate  students,  allowing  them  to  “relax  and  start  moving,”  to  be  

“ready  for  adventure”  (Writing  the  Australian  Crawl    23;  52).  What  kinds  of  writing  might  

students  compose  if  teachers  emphasize  generating  writing,  composing  what  stirs  the  

imagination,  instead  of  prescribing  prompts  and  presenting  writing  as  a  set  of  rules  to  

memorize  or  marks  to  correct.  What  if  we  said,  “When  you  write,  simply  tell  me  something.  

Maybe  you  can  tell  me  how  we  should  live”  (Writing  the  Australian  Crawl  27).    

Too  often  students  don’t  have  the  choice  or  space  to  “tell  me  how  we  should  live”—

to  write  what  matters  to  them.  This  isn’t  a  critique  of  the  Common  Core  or  its  emphasis  on  

analytical  writing;  in  fact,  I’ll  come  clean—I  appreciate  the  Common  Core.  I  do,  however,  

question  whether  we  ignite  a  passion  for  writing  by  handing  out  five  paragraph  outlines,  or  

by  explaining  how  semicolons  will  boost  a  conventions  score  on  the  annual  state  test  (I  

confess,  I’ve  done  both).  Lowering  writing  standards  doesn’t  mean  writing  sloppily,  it  

simply  offers  mercy  in  the  early  stages  of  development.  Clearly,  Stafford  understood  and  

employed  mechanical  constructions  and  grammatical  rules,  but  he  stressed  writing  from  

the  center,  writing  what  you  know.    He  writes,  “Composing  in  language  is  done  by  feel,  

rather  than  by  rule.”    

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Once  the  writer  plumbs  the  depths  of  his  or  her  well,  revision  is  appropriate.  

Although  it  may  not  be  beneficial  to  compare  oneself  to  a  brilliant  writer,  we  can  learn  from  

some  of  Stafford’s  habits.    For  instance,  in  a  draft  of  “Mein  Kampf,”  Stafford  scribbles  new  

verbs,  replacing  “wander”  with  “burrow,”  “puts  out”  with  “begs,”  “touches”  with  “snags.”  

Each  word  sharpening  the  poem’s  tone—even  the  title  was  changed  from  “The  Struggle,”  to  

“Mein  Kampf,”  evoking  images  of  Hitler’s  brutality.  The  original  idea  is  honed  by  culling  and  

chiseling  specific  words  or  phrases.    

Stafford’s  way  is  a  subversive  invitation  to  write.  In  other  words,  I  think  high  school  

students  will  drink  it  up.  At  the  heart  of  all  the  questions  English  teachers  hear—“How  long  

does  it  have  to  be”;  “Who  invented  the  comma?”;  “Why  do  we  have  to  write  so  much?”;  

“What  should  I  write  about?”—is  this  query:  What  is  writing  for?  This  is  the  common  core  

for  Stafford.  Writing  is  for  becoming  a  more  thoughtful  human  being,  exploring  the  

dichotomies  we  all  inhabit,  confronting  our  prejudices,  and  fostering  compassion  for  our  

neighbors.  Writing  becomes  not  an  essay  to  finish,  a  standard  to  meet,  but  a  journey  to  

embark  upon.  As  teachers  we  can  accompany  our  students  on  this  writing  life,  so  they  may  

continue  on—even  after  they’re  deemed  proficient.  

Post-­Stafford  

Stafford  has  helped  me  to  reorient  my  writing  life.  Usually,  I  felt  like  an  impostor,  

wondering  what  attributes  composed  a  bona  fide  writer.  Now  I  see  a  writer  is  someone  

who  writes.  Stafford  says,  “A  writer  is  not  so  much  someone  who  has  something  to  say  as  

he  is  someone  who  has  found  a  process  that  will  bring  about  new  things  he  would  not  have  

thought  of  if  he  had  not  started  to  say  them”  (Writing  the  Australian  Crawl  17).  This  is  an  

invitation  to  experience  “one  of  the  great,  free  human  activities”  (20).  This  “process-­‐rather-­‐

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than-­‐substance  view  of  writing”  led  Stafford  to  make  the  following  reflection:  “Writers  may  

not  be  special—sensitive  or  talented  in  any  usual  sense.  They  are  simply  engaged  in  

sustained  use  of  a  language  skill  we  all  have  (Writing  the  Australian  Crawl  20).    My  hope  is  

that  I—and  my  students—can  accept  this  democratizing  invitation  to  write  what  matters  to  

us.      

When  I  opened  the  letter  from  U  of  O,  I  experienced  the  sense  of  failure  Stafford  

knew  well  when  a  poem  didn’t  resonate  with  the  editor,  didn’t  bring  the  reader  to  

attention.  I  wasn’t  sure  what  this  rejection  might  compel  me  to  do.  Now,  I  see  it  brought  me  

to  Lewis  and  Clark  College,  reading  William  Stafford’s  works,  waking  up  early  to  write  

down  some  thoughts—a  practice  I  plan  to  continue,  savoring  the  “pieces  of  heaven”  (“Any  

Morning”).  Stafford  revealed  I  only  need  one  thing  to  become  a  writer:  an  alarm  clock.    

   

Epilogue    

Writing  the  William  Stafford  Way:  5  Easy  Steps      

1.  Wake  up  at  4:00  a.m.    2.  Start  writing  –  the  date  helps.  3.  Write  whatever  moves  you;  lower  your  standards,  when  necessary.  4.  Welcome  inspiration  and  pursue  it,  wherever  it  leads.    5.  Compost  and  revise,  repeating  steps  1-­4  every  morning.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Works  Cited  

Petersen,  Paulann.  We  Belong  in  History:  Writing  with  William  Stafford.  Portland,  Ore.:  

Ooligan  Press,  2013.    

Stafford,  William.  Writing  the  Australian  Crawl:  Views  on  the  Writer’s  Vocation.  Ann  Arbor:  

The  University  of  Michigan  Press,  1978.    

-­‐-­‐-­‐.  You  Must  Revise  Your  Life.  Ann  Arbor:  The  University  of  Michigan  Press,  1986.