William Stafford (1914-1993) was one of the United States' foremost poets and teachers. Author of more than sixty volumes of poetry and recipient of the National Book Award for Traveling through the Dark, Stafford served as the United States Poet Laureate and as Oregon's Poet Laureate. Among his many honors, Stafford was the recipient of a Shelley Memorial Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Western States Lifetime Achievement Award in Poetry.

Other poems on the web by William Stafford:
One hundred ten poems

William Stafford's Website.

William Stafford According to Wikipedia.

About Sound of the Ax:

"These brilliant lines are tuning forks, weather reports from a resonant interior world, to help us with the mysterious days confounding us. Dip in anywhere, repeatedly. Discover well-sharpened, minimalist axes of language, severing distraction and excess from our overstimulated brains. Whether you are a lifetime Stafford reader or brand-new to his voice makes no difference—his lines will help anyone live."
—Naomi Shihab Nye

"The Zuni believed that wearing turquoise made a horse sure-footed. When I’m reading Bill Stafford’s Sound of the Ax I feel as if I’m walking along the same craggy mountains but, now, with a pound of turquoise in my saddlebags."
—Toi Derricotte

"This book is a pile of good kindling. William Stafford is sitting here with the whittling knife, playful, very intelligent, so lively and provocative. Sit down with him and feed some of these to your own fire."
—Coleman Barks

"Sound of the Ax is aces. It reveals many of Bill’s greatest strengths—a willingness to live in company with paradox and the unknown, a sense of mission, a sense of fun. It’ll go with New Poems of Emily Dickinson and Merwin’s Asian Figures, kept within reach at the back of my desk."
—Robert Adams