Saturday, June 10, 2023

Stafford: ‘With Kit, Age 7, at the Beach’

 I think William Stafford is one of the best American poets and that one of his best poems is about being a parent.

A father takes his daughter to the beach. They climb a dune and watch the sea rage.

            “How far could you swim, Daddy,

            in such a storm?”

            “As far as was needed,” I said,

            and as I talked, I swam.

Being a parent is like that, and so it’s about parenting. Writing is like that sometimes, so I think it’s also about writing. In a lot of things we do, we don’t have answers. We don’t have skill. What we can bring to the task is endurance, determination in action.

• Source: William Stafford, The Way It Is: New & Selected Poems; Minneapolis, Minn.: Graywolf Press, 1998, p. 120.

at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

On not writing what I read

 I read a lot of poetry. I don’t write poems. When I turn on the tap, remarks about simple observations come out. No poetry. No fiction. • N...

  • When Willa Cather's life began
     Willa Cather had a maxim: “Life began for me when I ceased to admire and began to remember.” She liked what the Greeks called  anamnesis , ...
  • After the election
      People who are disappointed by elections ought to be careful about what they say — not out of fear of tyrants but out of concern for sprea...
  • Anthony Griffin: 'The Water Cries'
     Anthony Griffin set out to answer a couple of simple research questions: How many auction houses sold enslaved people in Galveston, Texas? ...