Feb. 17, 2003

Contact: David Johnston, KU Memorial Unions, (785) 864-2445.

Writer Kim Stafford to visit KU for reading and book signing

LAWRENCE -- The son of one of America's greatest modern poets, Kim Stafford, will read from his book "Early Morning: Remembering My Father, William Stafford" at 4 p.m. Monday, Feb. 24, at Oread Books in the Kansas Union at the University of Kansas. The reading will be followed by a reception and book signing. The event is free and open to the public.

Kim Stafford is the founding director of the Northwest Writing Institute at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore. He has written a dozen books of poetry and prose and has worked as an oral historian, letterpress printer, photographer and teacher. He also is the literary executor for the estate of William Stafford. Kim Stafford's book "Having Everything Right" won a citation for excellence from the Western States Book Awards.

William Stafford was born in Hutchinson in 1914. He received bachelor's and master's degrees from KU. A conscientious objector and pacifist, he spent 1942 to 1946 interned in Civilian Public Service Camps. His account of that experience, "Down in My Heart," was the subject of his master's thesis. William Stafford taught at Lewis & Clark College from 1948 to 1979. He wrote 67 volumes of poetry and prose and was poetry consultant to the Library of Congress -- a position now known as poet laureate. Among many honors, his first major collection, "Traveling Through the Dark," won the National Book Award. William Stafford died in 1993.

In "Early Morning: Remembering My Father, William Stafford," Kim Stafford creates an intimate portrait of interests shared by father and son as well as of the paradoxes in the life of his father, the public poet who often was enigmatic and elusive within the family. The book is rich with passages from William Stafford's poetry and daily writing, providing insight into the character and philosophy of the poet as well as the writing process.