ABSTRACT
Born in Hutchinson, Kansas, in 1914, William Edgar Staffordwas a contemporary of Robert Lowell, John Berryman, and Elizabeth Bishop, but he did not publish his first book of poetry, West of Your City, until 1960. Consequently, his work was also contemporary with the work of poets such as Sylvia Plath, Robert Duncan, and Frank O'Hara. Although West of Your City received encouraging reviews and his second book Traveling through the Dark (1962) won a National Book Award, Stafford did not receive the same critical attention as other major poets. In part, this was due to his individual themes and style; he did not easily fit among the Confessional poets, the Black Mountain poets, the Beats, or other prevalent groups. Nonetheless, Stafford has usually been associated with poets such as Richard Hugo, Donald Hall, and James Wright, especially in his attachment to local, ordinary subjects; to the potency of imagination and memory; and to a conversational poetic style that privileges exploration and process.
