Kim Stafford

Description:

As the Sky Begins to Change is a book of poems to wake the world, lyric anthems for earth and kin.

In his third poetry collection from Red Hen Press, Kim Stafford gathers poems that sing with empathy, humor, witness, and story. Poems in this book have been set to music, quoted in the New York Times, posted online in the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series, gathered in a chapbook sold to benefit Ukrainian refugees, posted online in response to Supreme Court decisions, composed for a painter’s gallery opening, and in other ways engaged with a world at war with itself, testifying for the human project hungry for kinship, exiled from bounty, and otherwise thirsting for the oxygen of healing song.

ADVANCE PRAISE

“Kim Stafford is a priest and poet, songwriter and philosopher. Each of these meticulously crafted poems offers the ability to see our interconnected world with a tender, resilient heart that only grows stronger over time. You will come to the book like that lucky raccoon who finds a plum tree in one of the early poems, feasting until you are ‘bandit happy, lusty gusto, shaky elbow, roly poly/on your side helpless with joy.'”

—James Crews, author of Kindness Will Save the World

“This inspiring new collection speaks to this moment of dilemma and decision: ‘What was our / certainty is all in ruins, so we sing glory, glory, glory.’ Poems here bring music to the book’s ‘little anthems of thought,’  to advance the vast change of heart demanded of us all. ‘From the ordinary,’ Stafford says, ‘you must rise into helpful dreaming.’ In this book, Stafford dreams and sings the world new, reader by reader.”

—Thomas R. Smith, author of Storm Island and Medicine Year

Description:

This book considers war and peace, pandemic struggles, Earth imperatives, a seeker’s spirit, and forging kinship. The former poet laureate of Oregon, Stafford has shared poems from this book in libraries, prisons, on reservations, with veterans, immigrants, homeless families, legislators, and students in schools. He writes for hidden heroes, resonant places, and for our chance to converge in spite of differences. Poems like “Practicing the Complex Yes” and “The Fact of Forgiveness” offer tools for connection with the self, the community, and the Earth: “It is a given you have failed . . . [but] the world can’t keep its treasures from you.” For the early months of the pandemic, Stafford wrote and posted a poem for challenge and comfort each day on Instagram and published a series of chapbooks that traveled hand to hand to far places—to Norway, Egypt, and India. He views the writing and sharing of poetry as an essential act of testimony to sustain tikkun olam, the healing of the world. May this book be the hidden spring you seek.

ADVANCE PRAISE

“Poetry began as song, and in the lyrics of Kim Stafford we still hear the singing. A keen listener to voices human and wild, he writes of prisoners and refugees, toads and wrens, warriors and peacemakers, orcas and rivers. His guiding impulse is compassion. He urges us to defy ‘the camp of anger’ through acts of kindness. He assures us that Nature holds no grudges. Even ‘in the era of stormy weather,’ bees gather nectar, birds weave nests, seeds sprout, and new life emerges. Here is a bard of small creatures and gentle gestures who believes that art can help heal the wounds we’ve inflicted on Earth, our fellow species, and one another, and that conviction shines through every page of this big-hearted book.”—Scott Russell Sanders, author of The Way of Imagination

Description:

Wild Honey, Tough Salt gathers citizen poems for tough times—with testaments for world community, spells for peace, earth blessings, and family consolations. 

Wild Honey, Tough Salt offers a prismatic view of Earth citizenship, where we must be ambidextrous now. The book takes a stern look inward, calling for sturdy character and supple spirit, and a bold look outward, seeking ways to engage troubling grief. The book begins with poems that witness for a buoyant life in a difficult world: wandering New Orleans in a trance, savoring the life of artist Tove Jansson, reading the fine print on the Mexican peso and the Scottish five-pound note. Clues to untapped energy lie everywhere by the lens of poetry. The book then moves to considerations of the worst in us—torture and war. How to recruit a child soldier? How to be married to the heartless guard? What to say to a child enamored by bullets? In the third section, the book offers a spangle of poems blessing the earth: wren song, bud growth, river’s eager way with obstacles. And the final section offers poems of affection: infant clarities of home, long marriage in dog years, a consoling campfire in the yard when all seems lost. The book will soften your trouble, and give you spirit for the days ahead.

 ADVANCE PRAISE

“Kim Stafford is the most humane poet going, devotedly writing every day, sharing encouragement and generous care everywhere. His eloquent lines, so deeply attentive to each moment, shimmer with breathtaking leaps and humble wisdom. They will help you live. Especially now.”—Naomi Shihab Nye

Wild Honey, Tough Salt demonstrates Kim Stafford’s remarkable talent for coming to the heart. These poems rise beautifully and naturally from their settings, whether a morning in a forest, or inside an ancient myth, or high on a ridge above Big Basin. Wild Honey, Tough Salt contains poems of quest, reconciliation, and joy, offering the reader enlightening variations on the essence of heart and self in communion. “Everything spoke, and I was / nothing but listening.”—Pattiann Rogers, Burroughs Medal winner for Lifetime Achievement in Nature Poetry