William Stafford’s Daily Writing: Something Like a Poem

“I want to start…by considering what my father’s daily writing pages contained, and how they worked for him — and how something like his approach might work for any of us who choose to give such daily writing practice a try.”

He would write something like a poem…or notes toward a poem…or just an exploratory set of lines that never became a poem.

He had taken a few steps up the ladder from silence in the general direction of song.

This can begin a process for distilling from ordinary experience the extraordinary report of literature. Nothing stupendous may occur…but if you do not bring yourself to this point, nothing stupendous will happen for sure….

and you are likely to spend the balance of your day in reaction to the imperatives of the outer world–worn down, buffeted, diminished, martyred.

–Kim Stafford in “Writing as Ritual”

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