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Thom Bray's avatar

Stafford was a fellow Oregonian, and as you probably know, assigned his University students the task of writing a new poem each day. When they complained of writer's block, his words are probably the best on the subject I've ever read: "Lower your standards and keep writing."

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aranya's avatar

This is just such a beautiful thing to learn about Stafford. Such a luminous presence. I am aware that he would urge students, and even other friends/poets to write regularly, write all the time - but "lower your standards and keep writing" is GOLD. This is what I'm going to tell myself when I hit dry spells. Thankyou so much for sharing this. :)

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Thom "Pappy" Bray's avatar

I find Stafford's willingness to risk and fail, probably the greatest lesson on writing I've ever had. I always kept that quote over my desk. I pass that advice to my scriptwriting students. It is indeed gold. You may also be interested in this blog post by his daughter Kim, if you haven't seen it. It's worthy of study: https://www.powells.com/post/poetry/four-elements-of-a-daily-writing-page-in-william-staffords-practice

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aranya's avatar

This is quite, instructive, thank you! I think, though, that Kim Stafford is William Stafford's son, not his daughter :)

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