Last night at my library I attended a great book discussion about Kansas Poems by William Stafford, edited by Denise Low.  Denise was Poet Laureate of Kansas from 2007-09, and she was our discussion leader last night!

Denise talked to us about William Stafford, a Quaker poet from Hutchinson, KS, who published his first collection of poems when he was almost fifty, in 1962.  That collection, Traveling Through the Dark, went on to win the National Book Award, and he was named U.S. Poet Laureate just a few years later.  His Kansas poems are written in plain language and reflect on death, loss, and rural poverty, but with a deep sense of acceptance and even twinkle-in-your-eye humor.  He was also a noted pacifist; in 2007, NPR’s All Things Considered ran a National Poetry Month feature on him called “A Pacifist’s Plainspoken Poetry.”

And yet!  Most of us in the audience had never even heard of Stafford prior to the book group.  But how could that be ~ a U.S. Poet Laureate and National Book Award winner, from our very own state?  And a KU grad, no less?? Continue reading →