This spring, Kim Stafford released As the Sky Begins to Change, his third book of poetry from California-based Red Hen Press. The empathetic and witty collection by the educator, writer, and Oregon’s ninth poet laureate deals with themes of nature, humor, war, politics, memory, and heartache. It has been set to music, quoted in The New York Times, posted in the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series, gathered in a chapbook sold to benefit Ukrainian refugees, and posted online in response to a Supreme Court decision — marking itself as a text of the times.