William

Stafford and his Unexplored Poems: The Lyric Sequence

Kim Schneider

Stafford has built a reputation for modesty, while accumulating 263 pages of
poems, (Turner 258). As critic Alberta Turner suggests in On William Stafford, one of the
reasons Stafford is well known in the literary world is because of the sheer amount of
poetry he wrote in his lifetimebut thats not the only reason. According to critic Peter
Stitt, almost a sonnet, the typical Stafford poem is short and sounds chatty, the lines are
neither precisely metered nor free; lyricism and relaxation balance one another on the
pagein general Stafford works in these short units (Stitt 63). Stafford writes the majority
of his hundreds of poems in this way. Although Stitt states that Stafford rarely writes in
other poetic forms, he does, in fact, have another form that he employs throughout his
poetic careerthe lyric sequence. Staffords poems written in this form can be categorized
into: narratives, poems of address, list poems, and wisdom poems. In conjunction with
these genres, Stafford uses three primary techniques in his numbered sectional poems to
create unity: repetition of rhetorical indications, repeated images, and titles.
Out of 16 books of his poetry, including Segues: A Correspondence in Writing Poetry,
which he writes with Marvin Bell, Stafford wrote 30 poems that he broke into numbered
lyrical sections, most of which are significantly longer than the usual sonnet-length Stafford
poem. The following table is a data collection of the number of lyric sequence poems
Stafford has in each book listed. Most of the books are the Harper editions plus a small
number of other editions. I will not be covering all of Staffords books.

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Stafford Book

Year
Published
Another World Instead
1937-1941
Traveling Through the Dark
1962
The Rescued Year
1966
Allegiances
1970
Someday, Maybe
1973
Going Places
1974
I would also like to Mention Aluminum
1976
Stories that Could be True
1977
A Glass Face in the Rain
1982
Segues: A Correspondence in Writing Poetry 1983
An Oregon Message
1987
Passwords
1991
My Name is William Tell
1992

Number of Lyric Sequence

Poems
1
2
3
6
6
1
1
1
1
1
2
4
1

As the table shows, while each book doesnt contain an overwhelming amount of
lyric sequence poems, except for perhaps Allegiances and Someday, Maybe, Stafford uses
the lyric sequence as a technique consistently throughout his poetic career, perhaps just as
consistently as his sonnet-length poems but not as often.
Staffords lyric sequences differ from his usual poems in a few key ways. While he
still uses a relatively short line-length, Staffords lyric poems are anywhere between four
lines and 100 lines plus. More often than not, they are significantly longer than the usual
Stafford poem; although the poem as a whole is longer, each individual section is usually
sonnet length.
The lyric sequence, often referred to as a long poem, was a modernist technique. As
paraphrased by critic Vincent B. Sherry Jr., Edgar Allen Poe defined lyric sequence poems
as sequences of short lyrics, sacrificing structure for the sake of momentary intensity,
seeking a lyric spontaneity and immediacy within open forms (Sherry 239-240). The
structure of these lyric sequences was seen as a way to provide a succession of intense

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poetic moments. Although many modernist critics tended to align with Poes definition,
literary critic Charles Altieri said that lucidity and lyricism are two impulses employed in
a lyric sequence (Sherry 242). According to Altieri, the long poem is structured by beliefs
and ideas, which are the stuff of thematic content, as a medium for the lyric poets
exploration (Sherry 243), whereas, lucidity in a lyric sequence is an ability to organize
these ideas into sophisticated, rational, ordered and integral statements of theme (Sherry
243). While Poe defined lyric sequences as intense but lacking thematic unity, Altieri
argues that lyric sequence poems are a delicate balance of poetic form and poetic
inspiration.
Critic B.J. Timmer provides multiple reasons for structural sections in poetry in his
article Sectional Divisions of Poems in Old English Manuscripts. According to him, the
sectional divisions, not always correctly indicated by scribes, were originally structural
divisions due to the poet, influenced by general considerations as to the approximate
length of a reading, (Timmer 321). This eventually leads Timmer to believe that numbered
poems, as a structural technique, are units of composition that he refers to as
psychological units because they agree with the duration of the momentary inspiration of
the poet, in the same way as a novelist divides his novel into numbered chapters (Timmer
322).
However, scholar David Marsden Wells counters Timmers argument and believes
that it is simply incredible that such different poets over a period of two centuries would
all have acted either way, and that divisions of such gratuitous and casual origin would
have been uniformly preserved so long without purpose (Wells 1). According Wells in
The Sections in Old English Poetry, while some poems in structural sections lack unity of

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content, many are begun and many closed with rhetorical indications, and the
overwhelming majority of the breaks occur at reasonable places, assuming the desirability
of a predetermined length of section (Wells 2). Wells further argues that structural
sections in Old English manuscripts were meant to be read aloud so sections in poetry were
placed at points of great suspense, which he views as downright artful (Wells 2).
So where does Stafford fit into all of this? According to the man himself in Writing
the Australian Crawl, Any break at a line, any caesura, any surfacing of natural syllable
intonationthese are all a total of language-feel that the writer orchestrates according to
what comes along in the act of composing (Stafford 54). In addition, Stafford believes
poetry arises out of the immediate, felt existence of the human experience (WTAC 49).
Both of these opinions from Stafford align more with Timmers psychological unit theory
for why poets put certain poems into lyric sequences. Although Stafford voices opinions
throughout Writing the Australian Crawl that align with Timmers theory, he also believes
that many of his subjects reoccur to him, even if they come from immediate experience.
Stafford believes that what a poem says, it keeps on saying, with variations (7). In an
interview with William Heyen and Al Poulin, Stafford adds that no matter how free we feel
when we writewe find ourselves characteristically coming back to a kind of home base
(WTAC 149). This could offer an explanation for why Stafford occasionally employs lyric
sequence poems; the same subject reoccurs to him, but not in a similar enough way that
each section would make a cohesive poem. Stafford follows the poetic inspiration of
immediate experience, which may not lend to an integrated poem but rather a lyrical
sequence.

Schneider 5
Critic Alberta Turner offers an explanation for Staffords lyric sequences in her
article discussing Things I Learned Last Week in On William Stafford. Although this poem
isnt a numbered lyric sequence, it has similar qualities to several of Staffords lyric poems.
She comments Stafford may have employed this seemingly random sequence because he
wants us to bound on each separate statement as on a spring that will twang us off into a
thicket of paradoxes, all harmless, all terrifying, most somehow amusing, and none
canceling its apparent opposites (Turner 259). Turner sees these seemingly random
sequences as a thicket of paradoxes which spring the reader into new understanding.
Stafford uses repeated imagery, rhetorical indications and titles to create unity
within his lyric sequences; however, he also has four major genres that his lyric sequence
poems fit into. These categories are: list poems, poems of address, narrative poems, and a
set of poems, which I will refer to as his wisdom poems. The poems in each genre contain a
certain set of similarities, however, some of Staffords lyric poems fit into more than one
category.

Stafford uses lyric sequence in a narrative format in order to tell a story

chronologically. These poems are ones in which the sections function like chapters; theres
a clear narrative told chronologically but because this isnt prose, plot tension and climax is
traded in for extended metaphor and repeated imagery. Some Stafford lyric sequences that
fit under this genre are The Move to California, The Animal that Drank Up Sound, and
Vocatus atque Non Vocatus. However, the Stafford narrative lyric poem can also tell a
story of people rather than a story of an event. Religion Back Home and People of the
South Wind are two lyric sequences that tell the story of a group of people rather than the
story of an event.

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Another genre Stafford employs in his lyric poems is the list poem. List poems

sections are usually little witticisms on different things under the same subject, though not
always. The relationship of these sections is often clarified by the title. Ways to Live,
Different Things, and Three Looks Out of a Window are three prime examples of
Staffords list poem.

Thirdly, Staffords lyric poems can be poems of address. These are poems that seem

to be addressed to someone, a specific person, or mimic the qualities of a speech. For

example, Wovokas Witness mimics the organization of a speech by the repetition of
people with a pronoun in the first line of each section. Visiting also reads like a poem of
address, as it seems to be a written down conversation of the speaker with a loved one
about what to do when they die. In comparison to the other three genres, poems of address
happen scarcely in Staffords lyric sequence poems.

Lastly, Staffords wisdom lyric sequence poems are distinguished by several

depictions of the same theme. While the content of the numbered sections is often on
different subjects, causing the poem to seem like it lacks unity, these poems are generally
unified by some overarching theme or piece of wisdom that Stafford wants the reader to
understand. For a Daughter Gone Away, and Assuming Control are examples of poems
where Stafford wants to leave the reader with a bit of wisdom.
Staffords poem, Ways to Live, uses the title to create unity in a prime example of
one of his list poems. The poem is 50 lines long and four sections, each with its own
subtitle. The first section, India, discusses how peoples lives happen / again and again,
being people or / animals. And if you live well / your next time could be even better (Ways
to Live 1-4), perhaps referring to the Hindu belief in castes and reincarnation. In section

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two, Having It Be Tomorrow, the sections characters dont have it new, / and they shake
their heads turning gray every / morning when the sun comes up. And you laugh (Ways to
Live 26-28). In section three, Being Nice and Old, you can turn from those you dont like
and simply let them drop off the edge of the world (Ways to Live 38). In the final section,
Good Ways to Live, the emanation / of all things pulls you / slowly out through doors
or windows / and you spread in the thin halo of night mist (Ways to Live 46-50). Each of
these sections discusses ways that people can live, whether thats a place to live, a religion
to live by, an age or a mental mindset. Although no section in this poem discusses the same
topic explicitly, each of the four sections is ultimately unified as one cohesive poem by the
title: Ways to Live.

The Move to California functions in a similar way as Ways to Live. This poem is

87 lines organized into six subtitled sections. Each subtitled section not only acts as a way
to explain to the reader where the section of the poem is taking place, but the subtitles also
function like chapter headings in a poetic saga of observations Stafford makes on the road
to his new job in California. The titles, in chronological order, are: The Summons in
Indiana, Glimpsed on the Way, At the Summit, Springs near Hagerman, Along
Highway 40 and Written on the Stub of the First Paycheck (The Move 69-72). The
Summons in Indiana is exactly what the title of the section suggestsa moment when
Stafford feels a nudge to Try farther west (The Move 18). Glimpsed on the Way
describes one slow cliff (The Move 22) later introduced in section three, At the Summit.
Section four, Springs near Hagerman, is set in a small area in Idaho known for its wealth
of natural springs. Section five, Along Highway 40, is in Nevada, where I crossed the
Sierras in my old Dodge / letting the speedometer measure Gods kindness, / and slept in

Schneider 8
the wilderness on the hard ground (The Move 69-72). The Sierras are a mountain range in
Nevada. Then finally section six, Written on the Stub of the First Paycheck, was written at
a gas station where:
There were peaks to the left so high
they almost got away in the heat;
Reno and Las Vegas were ahead.
I had promise of the California job,
and three kids with me.
(TMTC 78-82)

This last section is unique because its the first time the speaker mentions hes moving for a
job and that he has three kids in the car with him. As the Staffords move West, so too does
the setting of each lyric sequence. Each of these subtitles introduces a scene with
prepositionsin, on, at, near and alongand moves chronologically through Staffords
move. Essentially, each subtitle also functions like a chapter heading in a book,
documenting different areas Stafford and his family visit as they move west. The
combination of the subtitles, overarching title, and chronological account of the move
makes The Move to California one of Staffords narrative lyric poems.
On the other hand, the poem Wovokas Witness is not only an example of a poem
of address but also uses repeated rhetorical indications to mimic the speech of a Wovoka
missionary. The poem is four sections, 39 lines in total. Each line begins as follows: The
people (1), You people (8), My people (15), and My own people (29). Each of the four
sections then is not only begun by a number, but also by a rhetorical indication: the
addressing of the audience by the speaker in the poem. Wovoka was an American Indian
religious leader who spawned the second messianic Ghost Dance cult, which spread rapidly
through reservation communities about 1890 (Wovoka). Wovoka preached that he had
fallen into a trance in which he received a message from God, telling Wovoka that in two

Schneider 9
years his peoples ancestors would be resurrected and all of the white colonizers would
disappear from the Americas. In order to bring this about, Native American people were to
pledge their allegiance to the resurrection of the dead (or ghosts) by taking part in a ritual
dancethe so-called Ghost Dance (Wovoka). Wovoka likely gained followers like all
historical figures: through the use of speeches and effective rhetoric. Stafford not only uses
these rhetorical indications as a unifying technique, but also to emulate the speech of his
intended speaker. Therefore, the rhetorical indications used by Stafford are employed as a
poetic technique to emulate the speech of a Wovokas witness preaching to a crowd.
Staffords poem Assuming Control, 38 lines and four sections, contains two
primary ways for creating unity: repeated imagery and rhetorical indications. Although
each of its four sections doesnt begin with repeated rhetorical indications, the first and
fourth sections beginning lines are the same exact phrase. The first section states that
Sometimes I breathe and / the time called Now intrudes (Assuming Control 1). The fourth
section echoes: Sometimes I breathe and / the stars go by in their serene beatitudes
(Assuming Control 29). The statement on its own is ironic. Hopefully the speaker is always
breathing, otherwise he, presumably, isnt alive. By using this repeated phrase to bookend
the poem, Stafford implies the only way to assume control is to breathe and live in the
moment. In this case, Stafford employs rhetorical indications to create unity within the
poem as well as create a connection between the stanzas and the poems title.
Stafford also repeats images of weakness and the sky to reiterate an idea mentioned
in previous sections in a different way. In this poem, the fourth section echoes the first and
the third section is almost a continuation of the second section. Even so, the sections
interact in a complex way, much like a web of related imagery presented in different

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scenarios. For example, the first section asks: Dont they know that in the sky / someone
keeps track of the world? / Someone like Mohammed? Someone like Jesus? (Assuming
Control 6-8). This idea is revisited in the fourth section as the speaker responds to those
deliberate events in the sky / the sun, the moon, the stars (Assuming Control 37-38).
Stafford revisits this idea of God in the sky to represent God in two ways: human
(Mohammed, Jesus) or nature (moon, stars). In contrast, section two introduces the topic of
criticism:
My friends outline my weaknessinattention,
a selfish life, dull reactions.
My mouth says, Oh. My hands
wander over my vest or vaguely follow
an invisible butterfly before me.
(Assuming Control, 9-13)

The third section continues the theme of criticism, but from a less friendly source:
Staffords literary critics.
I listen to these discoveries. I read
about my weakness. How could I
have missed the obvious truth so long?
Generously, my critics lift examples
(Assuming Control, 22-25)

This part of section three echoes the previous section, especially with the repetition of the
word weakness. While the tone in the second section is humble, admitting these
character flaws, the tone in the following section is sarcastic and bordering condescension.
The fourth stanza also echoes the second stanza. The speakers gypsy attention wanders,
reminiscent of the friends criticism in section two for the speakers inattention. However
wavering, this attention will find the speakers mouth saying, Oh, (Assuming Control,
35), an almost exact repetition from section two when the speakers mouth says, Oh
(Assuming Control 11). Through the simple repetition of words and images, Stafford

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manages to create a web of associations between sections. Although the topic content may
be different, the sections are unified thematically through this repetition and through the
use of the title.
Staffords poem Atavism employs the three Stafford techniques for unifying his
sectional poems: a unifying title, prepositional phrases as rhetorical indications in the
beginning of each section and repeated imagery of darkness and light. Atavism is two
sections, 25 lines. Each of these two sections begins with a relative noun and contains a
prepositional phrase. This is used to place the reader immediately in a scene. The first line
of the poem reads: Sometimes in the open, you look up (Atavism 1). Similarly, the first
line of the second section reads: Something is being told in the woods (Atavism 11). Just
as a new chapter would indicate to a reader that theres a new setting, so to may a
numbered section in a lyric sequence. These prepositional phrases immediately give a
scene to each section after the vague words something and sometimes. Therefore, the
rhetorical indication is not only used to create a parallel between section one and two but
is also used to place the reader in a new setting.

In addition to each sections rhetorical indications, the title creates an overarching

evolutionary theme. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word atavism means
a resemblance to grand-parents or more remote ancestors than parents; tendency to
reproduce the ancestral type in animals or plants (OED Atavism). The first section states:
you were alert
as an otter and were suddenly born
like the evening star into wide
still worlds like this one you have found
again, for a moment, in the open.
(Atavism, 6-10.)

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This evening star suddenly born is remnant of the big bang theory, which states that a
giant star exploded millions of years ago, starting a domino effect that eventually created
the Universe, as we know it. According to the poem, just as stars are born from the
universe, so too are humans, plants and all things. This star, then, is the atavism or
ancestor the you in the poem holds a resemblance to. Similarly in section two, the
speaker walks through the woods in which they can feel/ the centuries ripple (Atavism
16-17). The speaker continues:
A walk through the forest strokes your fur,
the fur you no longer have. And your gaze
down a forest aisle is a strange, long
plunge, dark eyes looking for home.
For delicious minutes you can feel your whiskers
wider than your mind, away out over everything.
(Atavism, 20-25)

The fur that the you in the poem doesnt have is the essentially hairless skin humans
have, in comparison to hairier human ancestors. Your whiskers could refer to the otter
mentioned in the previous section, or it could also refer to an ancient human ancestor.
Stafford implies that the more human-like you in the first section can also be related to
the animal-human hybrid you in the second section. Although the ancestor is represented
in different ways in each section, each acts as a definition for how the modern man can
connect with their ancestral line.

Atavism also contains repeated imagery of darkness and birth that not only

reinforces the evolutionary theme of the poem but also bolsters a connection between the
different settings of the first and second section. The scenes in each section are described
with words that imply darkness. In the first section, A dim feeling comes and the speaker
is born like the evening star (Atavism 3, 8). The second section takes place in aisles of /

Schneider 13
shadow while a pencil of sunlight slowly travels its/ path, echoing the image of the star
in the first section. Each is a small point of light in surrounding darkness that travels a path
(Atavism, 11-14). The speakers gaze is also described as dark eyes looking for home
(Atavism 23). Each section also addresses the issues of evolution and birth in relation to
ancestry. In section one, the speaker says:
you were like this once: there was air,
and quiet; it was by a lake, or
maybe a riveryou were alert
as an otter and were suddenly born
(Atavism 4-7)

There are two possible interpretations of these lines. Stafford may be referring to a
moment in the speakers lifetime when he or she had an experience akin to a spiritual birth
during a moment of peace by a lake. The lines could also refer to a moment in historical
time, when the human race was born from the quiet darkness. In contrast, section two is
explicitly about recognizing evolution and all human ancestors in each human body.
you can feel
the centuries ripplegenerations
of wandering, discovering, being lost
and found, eating dying, being born.
(Atavism 16-19)

This part of the poem essentially represents the cycle of human life and history. Although
each section approaches it in different ways through language, the concept of atavismthe
tendency toward an ancestral typeis presented in each section through the repeated
images of light, darkness, and birth.

Although Stafford wrote hundreds of sonnet-length poems in his poetic career, he

does employ another form throughout his poetic lifetime: the lyric sequence. These
sequences are fall under four genresnarrative, address, wisdom, and listand are

Schneider 14
unified in three primary ways: repetition of rhetorical indications, repetition of imagery
and titles. Regardless of the form Stafford employed, all of his poems represent an
openness to the immediate experience and a willingness to be inspired from what may
come.























Works Cited

Schneider 15
Andrews, Tom. On William Stafford. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan Press, 1995. Print.
Hall, Donald. William Stafford: Eight Notions. Andrews. 148.
Sherry, Vincent B. Jr. Current Critical Models of the Long Poem and David Joness The
Anathemata. ELH. 52.1 Spring 1985: 239-255. JStor. Web. 8 December, 2015.
Stafford, William. Writing the Australian Crawl. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan Press, 1978. Print.
Stafford, William. The Way It Is. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 1977. Print.
Stitt, Peter. A Remarkable Diversity. Andrews. 63.
Timmer, B.J. Sectional Divisions of Poems in Old English Manuscripts. The Modern
Language Review. 47.3 July, 1952: 319-322. JStor. Web. 29 November, 2015.
Turner, Alberta. Things I Learned Last Week. Andrews. 258.
Wells, David Marsden. The Sections in Old English Poetry. The Yearbook of English Studies.
6.1 1976: 1-4. JStor. Web. 29 November, 2015.
"Wovoka." Encyclopaedia Britannica. Britannica Academic. Encyclopdia Britannica Inc.,
2015. Web. 06 Dec. 2015.