Thursday, June 24, 2010

Reading tonight at the Raven Bookstore will feature new edition of Kansas Poems of William Stafford

KANSAS POEMS OF WILLIAM STAFFORD:
POEMS, ESSAYS & INTERVIEWS

Edited by Denise Low

Commentary by Thomas Fox Averill, Kirsten Bosnak, Robert Day, Steven Hind, Jonathan Holden, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Denise Low, Al Ortolani, Linda Rodriguez, Ralph Salisbury, William Sheldon, Kim Stafford, Robert Stewart, Ingrid Wendt and Fred Whitehead

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Publication Date: August 1, 2010
ISBN 978-0-9817334-6-3 Library of Congress Control Number: 2010925068
Perfect-bound paper edition, 210 pages, $15.00
Woodley Memorial Press, Washburn University Topeka, KS 66621

(785) 670-1445 http://www.washburn.ed/reference/woodley-press/
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Woodley Memorial Press reissues an expanded edition of the 1990 Kansas Poems of William Stafford. Stafford, a National Book Award winner, wrote directly and indirectly about his home region throughout his life. The original edition collected many poems about the Great Plains region not published in book form. New essays, memories, poems, and interviews expand the range of the original book. They show the lasting influence of this beloved teacher and writer. Commentary by his son Kim Stafford and fellow writers show how his influence continues to inspire readers and poets everywhere.
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Kim Stafford: You see his devotion to hometown, to friendship, to ideas, to peacemaking, sense of place.

Robert Day: I was Bill Stafford's student because I learned from him about writing and life: Do it all and do it all now.

Steven Hind: William Stafford’s words are both good poetry and good medicine, antidote to the poisons of self-aggrandizement and its blurring of perception. He is a tonic for the mind.

Jonathan Holden: Wiry, elfin, with the face of a fox, Stafford was curious about everything around him, absolutely alert.

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg: Stafford guides me as a writer when it comes to his quiet turns of language, his spare and precise images, his direct and earnest voice, but mostly he guides me as a human.

Denise Low: Stafford was a revolutionary decades before the Civil Rights movement. He committed himself to activist writings.