ABSTRACT

I am a child of Midwestern parents, who was born in Kansas City, Kansas but only visited or lived in Kansas briefly. However, I listened to the stories my mother nostalgically related about her Kansas childhood. Although I feel once removed from her experiences, having this repertoire of stories allows me to deeply identify with the poems William Stafford wrote about his Kansas roots. Because of my mothers stories the lines how hard we chewed on our towns tough rind, how we loved its flavor truly resonated with my personal experience of Kansas.

In addition, I appreciate more fully how hard life was in that prairie landscape during the depression and am reminded of my mothers influence on my writing and her love of my grandmother from oral history that resonate when I read the poems Mothers Day, A Memorial for My Mother and 108 East Nineteenth (sweet peas are my mothers favorite flower). It was a gift when Kim Stafford shared anecdotes about the tremendous influence that William Staffords mother had on his writings in the Stafford archives .

Having moved over and over again in my own life I learned early on that one persons treasures can quickly become another persons bargain at an estate sale, and that there is a good reason why the Latin word for baggage is impedimento. Because I moved so often I realize that I abhor making decisions about what to keep and what to discard.

This avoidance manifests itself in many different ways. For example, in my own writing I would rather hoard all my ideas than pursue one. Needless to say, when confronted with the embarras de richesses of the 16,000 photos and an incredible collection of primary documents that William Stafford kept throughout his life in the Watzek Library William Stafford archival collection I felt overwhelmed. I couldnt even imagine myself in the position of Kim Stafford, William Staffords son, when he was told by his father that he had been chosen as the executor of his fathers wealth of what we labeled ephemera in the book trade.

108 EAST NINETEENTH

Mother, the sweet peas have gushed out of the ground where you fell, where you lay that day when the doctor came, while your wash kept flapping on the line across the backyard. I stood and looked out a long time toward the Fairgrounds. The Victrola in the living room used to play Nola, and the room spun toward a center that our neighborhood clustered around. Nasturtiums you put in our salad would brighten our tummies, you said, and we careened off like trains to play tag in alfalfa fields till the moon came out and you called us home with Popcorn for all to come. But that was long before you said, Jesus is calling me home. And Father, when your summons came and you quietly left, no one could hold you back. You didnt need to talk because your acts for years had already prayed. For you both, may God guide my hand in its pious act, from far off, across this page.

MOTHERS DAY
Peg said, This one, and we bought it for Mother, our allowance for weeks paid out to a clerk who snickered a hideous jar, oil-slick in color, glass that light got lost in.

Peg

We saw it for candy, a sign for our love. And it lasted: the old house on Eleventh, a dim room on Crescent where the railroad shook the curtains, that brief glory at Aunt Mabels place.

Peg thought it got more beautiful, Egyptian, sort of, a fire-sheened relic. And with a doomed grasp we carried our level of aesthetics with us across Kansas, proclaiming our sentimental badge.

Now Peg says, Remember that candy jar? She smoothes the silver. Mother hated it. Im left standing alone by the counter, ready to buy what will hold Mother by its magic, so she will never be mad at us again.

A MEMORIAL FOR MY MOTHER

For long my life left hers. It went among strangers; it weakened and followed foreign ways, even honesty, and courage. It found those most corrupting of all temptations, friends their grace, their faithfulness. But now my life has come back. In our bleak little town I taste salt and smoke again. I turn into our alley and lean where I hid from work or from anything deserving of praise. Mother, you and I We knew if they knew our hearts they would blame. We knew we deserved nothing. I go along now being no one, and remembering this how alien we were from others, how hard we chewed on our towns tough rind. How we loved its flavor.

PANEL 2 TEEN YEARS

My Kansas grandfather always wore overalls like the ones Stafford is wearing in this photo taken when he worked in a refinery. Work was curtailed when he was sent to a camp for conscientious objectors to World War III. I was quite moved when I learned about this because in my adolescence I had many experiences related to my moms resistance efforts to the Vietnam War. I often heard her lament that she had grown up with never-ending war from her childhood to the present. On the back of the top photo Stafford wrote the following note. "Bob Pope & Chuck Worley at a little town we hiked to one Sunday afternoon. Bob is water-coloring, Chuck writing a letter. We had an adventure there - I'll tell you about it later." In the photo citation it says the adventure Stafford alludes to was the gathering of a mob intent on harassing Stafford and his fellow pacifists. The scene that occurred in 1942is described in detail in Stafford's book Down in My Heart.. I can relate to his description which begins with a salient question: I have often asked myself in the five dictatorships I have lived under: When are men dangerous?

PANEL 3 CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR

The Stafford Archives at Lewis and Clark contain a lot of material about the 12, 000 conscientious objectors who were sent to internment camps in World War II. Growing up with my mothers pacifism I was intrigued by the accounts I read about what it was like to be there and how it shaped him. I also loved when I discovered the photo of Stafford continuing his anti-war efforts decades later with Dr. Benjamin Spock at City Hall in Portland, Oregon.

PANEL 4
The internment camp for conscientious objectors was a difficult experience and seemed like the most unlikely place to fall in love, yet that is where Stafford first met and fell in love with his wife, Dorothy. When I found this photo and heard the account of how it happened from Kim Stafford I was reminded of when I was in Chile during the plebiscite. On the outside of a church where the testimonials of the tortured were taken was painted El amor es mas fuerte (Love is stronger). This is what came to mind when I heard this love story. Love is stronger in the most difficult of circumstances. An unforeseen result of their union was that William Staffords literary legacy would be passed on to a loving caretaker, his son, Kim Stafford.

PANEL 5 HOW A LANDSCAPE SHAPES US

When I put these photos together I was struck by how similar they were to Taoist paintings where the human figure is so small in comparison to the world that surrounds it. In his poetry, as well,

BUILDING THE MONUMENT OF ONES OWN LIFE

I was struck by the juxtaposition of these two photos: the tribute to Stafford in the form of a mural in his place of birth, Hutchinson, Kansas, and a photo of Stafford standing next to a monument in Persepolis, Iran. Wherever his adventures took him, his writings were the monument he created on a daily basis. I feel that Stafford was shaped by whatever