{"product_id":"9781555972844","title":"The Way It Is : New and Selected Poems","description":"\u003cstrong\u003eThe Way It Is\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor(s): William Stafford\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\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 \u003ci\u003eThe Way It Is: New and Selected Poems\u003c\/i\u003e gathers unpublished works from his last year, including the poem he wrote the day he died, as well as an essential and wide-ranging selection of works from throughout his career.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\u003eReview(s):\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Stafford's quiet presence in the landscape of American poetry in my lifetime has been a kind of continuing reassurance whose values always seemed to me beyond question. Even those of us who have read him for years are almost certain to be surprised now, I think, and repeatedly surprised, at the range and freshness of his gift, its responsiveness to the small, the plain, the apparently usual. I think his work as a whole will go on surprising us, growing as we recognize it, bearing witness in plain language to the holiness of the heart's affections which he seemed never to doubt. [This book is] a treasure that he has left us.” —\u003ci\u003eW.S. Merwin\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[Stafford] left behind a body of work that represents some of the finest poetry written during the second half of [the twentieth] century . . . The poems, which reveal many of Stafford's themes--his affinity for Native Americans, love of nature, protest of war, and concern about the dangers of technology--are subtle and powerful in tone, but imagery is paramount . . . Highly recommended.” —\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This is a collection to savor and admire. The many contributors to this extraordinary endeavor have completed a task worthy of this much-loved poet.” —\u003ci\u003eHarvard Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eISBN:  9781555972844\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e ","brand":"Graywolf Press","offers":[{"title":"Paperback \/ softback","offer_id":40673515765966,"sku":"9781555972844","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0600\/7029\/7806\/products\/getimage_b2ea5b24-7631-4181-8af2-f8b41a1fd78c.jpg?v=1639886524","url":"https:\/\/pickwickbookshop.com\/products\/9781555972844","provider":"Pickwick Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}