{"product_id":"the-way-it-is-new-and-selected-poems-9781555972844","title":"The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems","description":"\u003cp\u003eWilliam Stafford (1914-1993) was an earnest, perceptive, and often affecting American poet who filled his life and ours with poetry of challenge and consolation. \u003ci\u003eThe Way It Is: New and Selected Poems\u003c\/i\u003e gathers unpublished works from his last year, including the poem he wrote the day he died, as well as an essential and wide-ranging selection of works from throughout his career. An editorial team including his son Kim Stafford, the poet Naomi Shihab Nye, and the poet, translator, and author Robert Bly collaborated on shaping this book of Stafford's pioneering career in modern poetry. The poems in \u003ci\u003eThe Way It Is\u003c\/i\u003e encompass Stafford's rugged domesticity, the political edge of his irony, and his brave starings-off into emptiness.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWilliam Stafford\u003c\/b\u003e was born in Hutchinson, Kansas, in 1914. After the Second World War (to which he was a conscientious objector), he earned a Ph.D. at the newly created Iowa Writer's Workshop. A longtime lecturer, workshop leader, and advocate on behalf of younger writers and readers, Stafford taught English at Lewis and Clark College from 1956 to 1979. He was awarded the National Book Award in Poetry for \u003ci\u003eTraveling through the Dark\u003c\/i\u003e. The author of over fifty books, Stafford remains one of the most beloved and widely read poets in contemporary American letters. He died in Oregon, where he had formerly served as the state's poet laureate, in 1993.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Graywolf Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50725475352850,"sku":"9781555972844","price":15.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_98427aec-a76a-4c8d-9657-27a57d43173d.jpg?v=1734830837","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-way-it-is-new-and-selected-poems-9781555972844","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}