January 17, 2025 brought the 111th anniversary of William Stafford’s birth. As it happens, every year brings a celebration of the Kansas/Oregon poet and his writings. With my biography of Stafford on the far horizon (fingers crossed for 2027), I was thrilled to take part in two Stafford birthday celebrations this year in Oregon. I was grateful to event organizers who invited me to parachute in via Zoom to their programs in Ashland (Southern Oregon University) and the Milwaukie Public Library. At each event I read brief excerpts from my manuscript and then a poem or three from some of the lesser-known and never collected poems I’ve come across in recent years.
This video was recorded on January 18, 2025; my turn in the spotlight begins about 9 minutes in.