The unpublished early poems of William Stafford now added to "a body of work that represents some of the finest poetry written during the second half of [the twentieth] century." (Library Journal)

 

If I could remember all at once—but I have forgotten.
But some day, looking along a furrowed cliff, staring

beyond the eyes’ strength, I’ll start the avalanche
and every stone will fall separate and revealed.
                                                                   —from “Meditation”

Twenty-eight years old and a conscientious objector during World War II, William Stafford was assigned under penalty of law to work in camps, an internal exile within his own country. In this remarkable collection of poems, nearly all of them never before published, the first decade of Stafford’s writing life is for the first time made available to readers. Edited by the poet Fred Marchant, one of
the first marine officers honorably discharged as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, Another World Instead tells the story of a committed pacifist living in a time of war and a writer beginning a major life in American poetry.

Introduction by Fred Marchant

For Poems—'42 and '43

 

1937-1941

White Pigeons
To Schumann-Heink
Purpose
Subject and Background
Communication from a Wanderer
   I. Report of Kansas in Winter
   II. Report of the Nation Forest
   III. Report of the Southeast
   IV. Final Report
From the Sound of Peace
Discovery Home Town
Women of Kansas
Observation

 

1942-1945
At Roll Call
Event
A Vine
Buzzards over Arkansas
Inspirational Talk
Escape Artist
CO Park Project
Friend Sky
"Their voices were stilled . . ."
Exile [I]
Exile [II]
The Prisoner
Week End in Santa Barbara
Stranger
"Time fills the canyon . . ."
Los Prietos [I]
The Country of Thin Mountains
Dark-Browed Rough Pacifist
Director
Discovery [II]
Los Prietos [II]
The Way Men Walk
Night Sound
Rebels
Breath
Incident
Snow
CO's Work on Mountain Road
Dar Down, A River
"They say sound is the war . . ."
Search
Meditation
Tragedy
Walking at Night

"We call it the chaparral . . ."
Here, Now
Apology
Prison Camp
"While we sat on the lawn . . ."
"I was there when it happened . . ."
Family Statement
Current
Like Whitman
Easy
Nocturne [I]
"spoke about sacrifice . . ."
"Your tragedy before the ship goes down . . ."
"I do not know how that fine dust rises . . ."
More Than Bread
"Shall we have that singing . . ."
These Mornings
Speech from a Play
Nocturne [II]
Christmas Comes but Once a Year
Immediate
War Guilt
Fate
Devotion To a Gold Star Mother
At a Little Church
"You might as well put . . ."
"The One who said 'No violence' . . ."
Counsel
Fire in Lava Country
"It's an old story . . ."
We Kindred
Home
Little Sermon
Isaiah, ‘44
"They taught me to be hurt . . ."
A Posy
"They flawed when struck . . ."
Listening
Speech from the Big Play
One Place I Saw
Before the Big Storm
"Unto a great great deaf mountain . . ."
The Tall Animals
Footnote
Travel Report: 1945
All White
Chicago Bridge, Evening
"That land spoke . . ."
Listener
Flickerings
"I had forgotten the clown . . ."
The War Season
Translation from the Yaqui
Twelve Years Old
The Midgets of War
Mr. Conscience
Nine-Year’s Dream
"The first thing that grows . . ."
The Sound: Summer, 1945
Victory
"A note on solemn war . . ."
On Attending a Militaristic Church Service
Nine Years Old
CO Week End
"Over the Candle we looked at us . . ."
Assay
Review
Note

 

1946-1947

Return "I thought they shouldn't turn the light so low . . ."
Easy Art
"They listened to him say his creed . . ."
To Those among Us Who Will Be Wise, and Know
Deep Listening
"You dropped into my morning . . ."
Campanile
Two Bits Worth
"When I walked along the earth . . ."
So Long
Human Song
Occurrences
"All around the biggest bay . . ."
Demolition Project
Foundations
Home Town from the Flyer
"While one bird bears the noon . . ."
Like Ours
Humanity in the Service
The Arrow Maker
Muttered Creed
Country Boy at College—Postwar
Members of the Kingdom
Night Words
Smoke Trees
At the Salt Marsh
Those Few
Super Market
Possession
Veteran
"There in the deep room . . ."
Beginning of Hostilities
Two Kinds of Faith
"Your tears fell on my eyes . . ."
Who Blow
A Leader I Met
The Materials
Faint Message
Relic
Every Breakfast
Storm Warning
The Verdict
Graduate Work
Sub-urban
Postwar Niblets
Inside Engines
Too Big
Faith
Outside
The Myth of the Windblown Hair
The Right Thing
It Was This Way
Credentials
Walking Papers
Ruminations: Noon
Rebel Telling You
From the Back Row
Wind Gift
"A million explosions went out . . ."

 

[Coda: a Dedication]

 

Notes 
Acknowledgments

“William Stafford’s quiet presence in the landscape of American poetry in my lifetime has been a kind of continuing reassurance whose value always seemed to me beyond question.” —W. S. MERWIN

William Stafford (1914–93) was the author of more than fifty books, including Traveling Through the Dark, winner of the National Book Award, and The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems.

Publisher: Graywolf Press
Imprint: Graywolf Press
Distributor: MPS
Publication Date: 04-01-2008
Pages: 128
Measurements: 9.00in X 6.00in