Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime & FREE Returns

FREE delivery Monday, April 11 if you spend $25 on items shipped by Amazon

Or fastest delivery Friday, April 8. Order within 11 hrs 51 mins

In Stock.

[{"displayPrice":"$20.37","priceAmount":20.37,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"20","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"37","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"3y4ZHcs7%2Fs8TcwtL1jIq6mITceXvRc%2Fg7rRrgtord1rLL3sqXGvZijR%2BToR8GYc6ghyJAemRnoJNzhQ3bcmFneE%2FUXGTgLPhNcJkDcAAaC6fa5wwWIa82kOlIc90PgMqy1hwZatzbdc%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW"},{"displayPrice":"$12.40","priceAmount":12.40,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"12","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"40","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"AnGL7SPSE9vd8W9vP8%2BlHmaltsNmV2AIoIt95wfdmUo%2F0CvXfxPQapR0%2FMw8kafiHnnZTl%2F27zHJ0wlpWzOZAbazgJeiuCSeVH02s%2FEgH51fdBAbb%2FxiIXtpuVRrAsv9cULYn4Zq7GvT%2B%2BW1TqrXvNOEJ8CiTfLLRNjF0lX0dYy0mTC2q5lwVw%3D%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED"}]

$$20.37 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details

Secure transaction

Ships from

Amazon.com

Sold by

Amazon.com

Details

Ships from

Amazon.com

Sold by

Amazon.com

Return policy: Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt

Add a gift receipt for easy returns

Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime

FREE delivery Monday, April 11 if you spend $25 on items shipped by Amazon

Or fastest delivery Friday, April 8. Order within 11 hrs 51 mins

Used: Good | Details

Sold by Cooke’s Books & Goods

Fulfilled by Amazon

Share

Other Sellers on Amazon

Added

Not added

$20.36
& FREE Shipping

Sold by: YourOnlineBookstore

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See all 3 images

Follow the Author

William Edgar Stafford

Crossing Unmarked Snow: Further Views on the Writer's Vocation (Poets On Poetry) Paperback – January 8, 1998

by William Stafford (Author), Paul Merchant (Editor), Vincent Wixon (Editor)

10 ratings

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Paperback

"Please retry"

$20.37

$20.36

$2.61

Paperback
$20.37

35 Used from $2.61 4 New from $20.36 1 Collectible from $15.00

Enhance your purchase

"It is this impulse to change the quality of experience that I recognize as central to creation. . . . Out of all that could be done, you choose one thing. What that one thing is, nothing else can tell you--you come at it over unmarked snow."
--William Stafford
A plain-spoken but eminently effective poet, the late William Stafford (1914-1993) has managed to shape part of the mainstream of American poetry by distancing himself from its trends and politics. Though his work has always inspired controversy, he was widely admired by students and poetry lovers as well as his own peers. His fascination with the process of writing joined with his love of the land and his faith in the teaching power of nature to produce a unique poetic voice in the last third of the twentieth century.
Crossing Unmarked Snow continues--in the tradition of Stafford's well-loved collections Writing the Australian Crawl and You Must Revise Your Life-- collecting prose and poetry on the writer's profession. The book includes reviews and reflections on poets from Theodore Roethke to Carolyn Forche, from May Sarton to Philip Levine; conversations on the making of poems; and a selection of Stafford's own poetry. The book also includes a section on the art of teaching, featuring interviews, writing exercises, and essays on the writer's vocation.
William Stafford authored more than thirty-five books of poetry and prose during his lifetime, including the highly acclaimed Writing the Australian Crawl: Views on the Writer's Vocation and You Must Revise Your Life.

Print length

168 pages
Language

English
Publisher

University of Michigan Press
Publication date

January 8, 1998
Dimensions

5.38 x 0.9 x 8 inches
ISBN-10

0472066641
ISBN-13

978-0472066643
See all details

Frequently bought together

William Stafford
20
Paperback
36 offers from $2.99
William Stafford
14
Paperback
22 offers from $8.99
William Stafford
22
Paperback
62 offers from $1.99
William Stafford
75
Paperback
73 offers from $1.87
William Stafford
116
Paperback
48 offers from $4.32

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In a career that began at 46, Stafford (1914-1993) published 67 full-length collections and chapbooks of sharply observed verse, harvesting poems from his diligently carried out "Daily Writings." Rather than completely refining out the rougher work, this second attempt at selecting from Stafford's vast oeuvre quadruples the poem count of its predecessor, following the arc of a journeyman's career with its attendant excesses, successes and failures. Stafford, who after some itinerant years settled into a 30 year stay at Oregon's Lewis & Clark college and a stint as the state's poet laureate, rendered the objects that came his way in ordinary language. Most striking, in hindsight, is the easy range of his intentionally limited set of linguistic pipes: from simmering violence and its attendant atmospherics ("Travelling Through the Dark"; "Not in the Headlines") to religious naturalism ("I crossed the Sierras in my old Dodge/ letting the speedometer measure God's kindness,/ and slept in the wilderness on the hard ground.") to elegy ("At the Grave of My Brother") and social history and commentary ("Is This Feeling about the West Real?"; "Our City is Guarded by Automatic Rockets"). Other poems offer delicate philosophical introspection, as in the familiar "Bi-focal": "So, the world happens twice--/ once what we see it as;/ second it legends itself/ deep, the way it is." Including 71 previously unpublished new poems, among them the poem Stafford wrote the day he died, this collection fully reacquaints us with a quiet, generous presence on the American poetic landscape. (Apr.) FYI: Down in My Heart, Stafford's WWII conscientious objector's diary, is due from Oregon State in April ($14.95 paper 120p ISBN 0-87071-430-9). The Univ. of Mich. recently publishe the essay collection Crossing Unmarked Snow: Further Views on the Winter's Vocation ($13.95 paper ISBN 0-472-06664-1; $39.50 Cloth

From Library Journal

Stafford (1914-93) wrote over 35 books of poetry and prose (e.g., Even in Quiet Places, LJ 6/1/96). This book contains reflections on other poets and their work, a selection of Stafford's own work, and thoughts on the art of writing poetry, including a section on teaching. Poetry has increased in popularity of late, and this book would make an interesting accompaniment to a readers' group studying poetry. It helps readers get inside the writer's head and understand the process of poetry. The poem "An Afternoon in the Stacks" begins "Closing the book, I find I have left my head inside." Readers will have the same experience here.?Lisa J. Cihlar, P.L., Wis.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product information

Technical Details

Publisher

‎University of Michigan Press; First Edition (January 8, 1998)

Language

‎English

Paperback

‎168 pages

ISBN-10

‎0472066641

ISBN-13

‎978-0472066643

Item Weight

‎7.5 ounces

Dimensions

‎5.38 x 0.9 x 8 inches

Feedback

Would you like to tell us about a lower price?

Customer reviews

5 star		75%
4 star		25%
3 star 0% (0%)		0%
2 star 0% (0%)		0%
1 star 0% (0%)		0%

How are ratings calculated?

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Susamoo

Fine Comment on the Writing Life

Reviewed in the United States on December 16, 2012

Verified Purchase

This book is a continuation of Stafford's previous works, Writing the Australian Crawl, and You Must Revise Your Life. In short it is a book about writing about writing. Poems, essays, and articles give further inklings into the mind of Stafford and the likes of Theodore Roethke, Carollyn Forche, and Philip Levine. Conversations on the making of poems and the art of teaching complete this volume of the writer's vocation.

6 people found this helpful

Helpful

Mary Ohio

Writing, Teaching, Loving Poetry

Reviewed in the United States on November 14, 2014

Verified Purchase

Our poetry teacher recommended this. It is not a "how to write poetry" book, because it is poetry itself....and helps to open your thinking and feeling to grasping at the fleeting thoughts, the images, the inner life you are trying to express in your writing. It is an inspiring book, easy to read. You can pick it up and read a page here and there, or sstraight through. An excellent choice for teachers to order for their students, or for running off selected pages or chapters to create a good discussion and follow up writing assignment.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Nathan Albright

An Excellent Justification And Explanation Of The Writer's Work

Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2014

The last two stanzas of the poem “Tuned In Late One Night” that open this book demonstrate both the approach of William Stafford to writing and my own appreciation of him as a poet:

It’s like this, truth is: it’s looking out while everything
happens; being in a place of your own,
between your ears; and any person
you face will get the full encounter
of your self. When you hear any news
you ought to register delight or pain
depending on where you really live.

Now I am fading, with this ambition:
to read with my brights full on,
to write on a clear glass typewriter,
to listen with sympathy,
to speak like a child.”

There are several different kinds of writers. Some writers are insomniacs who write out of the darkness of night, unable to sleep because of the restlessness of their minds. Other writers are writers of the afternoon, enjoying a peaceful siesta in the heat of summer and writing languid and limp lines in the heat of the day. Some writers, like William Stafford, are writers of the morning, waking up at 4:30AM in order to write in those precious and fleeting moments of freedom before the darkness gives way to the dawn and the responsibilities of the waking world, a choice of writing time Stafford made because it allowed him the freedom to write before his obligations to the worker’s camps where he spent World War II as a conscientious objector. Each type of writing carries with it its own purpose and its own context, and Stafford, as a reflective thinker as well as a profound poet, shares examples of his work as well as a coherent approach to poetry in this slim (150 page) but deep work.

This book is divided into three parts. The first part focuses on the process of daily journaling that the prolific poet (Stafford is known to have written about 22,000 poems during the course of his productive life, even though he only published his first work of poetry when he was almost 50 years old) undertook as a way of capturing insights in the ordinary course of life and then doing the revising work to polish them and refine them. His poem “What’s in My Journal” on page 23 of this work expresses my own attitude and mix of perspectives as a writer:

“Odd things, like a button drawer. Mean
things, fishhooks, barbs in your hand.
But marbles too. A genius for being agreeable.
Junkyard crucifixes, voluptuous
discards. Space for knickknacks, and for
Alaska. Evidence to hang me, or to beautify.
Clues that lead nowhere, that never connected
anyway. Deliberate obfuscation, the kind
that takes genius. Chasms in character.
Loud omissions. Mornings that yawn above
a new grave. Pages you know exist
but you can’t find them. Someone’s terribly
inevitable life story, maybe mine.”

The second part of this book contains some of the author’s thoughts on other writers. As is the case with Stafford’s poetry, his literary criticism likes to let the authors speak for themselves with their own voice rather than attempting to foist an analysis onto them, and he shows a dissatisfaction with literary critics who are too keen in distilling the rich and diverse and often complicated strains of poetry into easy and pat solutions. However, he is generally tolerant and benevolent towards the beauty of poets of many different kinds of voices, refusing to label certain kinds of poets as beautiful and certain as ugly, but rather praising the authenticity of a poet to their own voice, and the dedication to the hard work of being honest with one’s self and one’s world but also kind to others. Of one poet, he says the following on page 58 of this work: “It is difficult to overstate the alienation this writer works from; he gives ordinary readers a view of the place of the absolutist, of the principled rebel. This is not to say that his stance is one of moral superiority; but he has taken the much-contemplated step of saying no to the state, and has been imprisoned for it. That passionate individuality referred to earlier resulted in long-suffering rebellion, in circumstances which continue to test individual values.” Indeed, his criticism is pointed, but honest, and when it comes to fellow poets, generally kind as well as perceptive, of the model we should all aspire to as literary critics.

The third section involves Stafford’s attitudes about writing workshops, both those he leads as a teacher as well as those in which he participates from others. As is often the case, he strives for a balance between the honest expression of feeling as well as the details that fix our thoughts and feelings to the earth, that keep life from becoming a mere abstraction and that allow us a fleeting glimpse of what makes ourselves and others tick. Stafford was known for his “no praise, no criticism” way of teaching writing, where he did not want students to either write for his adoration and lose track of their own voice nor want his students to be so burdened by their fears of judgment and rejection that they refused to pick up the pen in the first place and let the river of ink pour out of their hearts, minds, and souls in the first place. Stafford found his own muse in that balance between a child-like openness to experience and insight in small moments and ordinary situations and a deep and private sense of reflection upon those experiences, to let thoughts wander this way and that, the way a placid dairy cow gently and persistently chews her cud to make sure her meal of pasture grass or barn hay is fully digested.

It is striking that this book is the third book about the writer’s craft that William Stafford wrote. I have yet to read the other two, but based on this one they would provide a mixture of clever insight, breathtakingly beautiful poetry, and prosaic wisdom deeply bound up with the ordinary habits and experiences of thoughtful and creative people. For some reason writers often feel compelled to justify their craft in a way that would seem entirely redundant for lawyers or engineers or businessmen who would take offense to having to defend their legitimacy in ways that a musician or artist or writer feels compelled to do so often. As Stafford is quick to note, we do not write primarily for money, or for fame, or even for praise. We are writers because writing is what we do, because we have an inner voice longing to make itself heard, if only to ourselves. Yet, if we are fortunate, as William Stafford surely was, our works will be worthy of enduring long after we are dead and buried, echoing throughout the reflections and understanding of those who come after us and who will take up our mantle and tilt against their own windmills. As Stafford said himself in “An Afternoon In The Stacks,” on page 49 of this work:

…“When this book ends
I will pull it inside-out like a sock
and throw it back in the library. But the rumor
of it will haunt all that follows in my life.”

What more could any writer ask for than that?

7 people found this helpful

Helpful

Gordo

hey

Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2013

Verified Purchase

this book was stupid, my professor made me buy this lame book that was just babble. I need to write

Helpful