Singer Come From Afar

by Kim Stafford

Overview

The five sections in Kim Stafford’s Singer Come from Afar hold poems that summon war and peace, pandemic struggles, Earth imperatives, a seeker’s spirit, and forge kinship. The former poet laureate of Oregon, Stafford has shared poems from this book in libraries, prisons, on reservations, with veterans, immigrants, homeless families, legislators, and students in schools. He writes for hidden heroes, resonant places, and for our chance to converge in spite of differences. Poems like “Practicing the Complex Yes” and “The Fact of Forgiveness” engineer tools for connection with the self, the community, and the Earth: “It is a given you have failed . . . [but] the world can’t keep its treasures from you.” For the early months of the pandemic, Stafford wrote and posted a poem for challenge and comfort each day on Instagram and published a series of chapbooks that traveled hand to hand to far places—to Norway, Egypt, and India. He views the writing and sharing of poetry as an essential act of testimony to sustain tikkun olam, the healing of the world. May this book be the hidden spring you seek.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781597098878
Publisher:	Red Hen Press
Publication date:	04/06/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Kim Stafford is a writer and teacher in Oregon, and the founding director of the Northwest Writing Institute at Lewis & Clark College. His poetry titles include A Gypsy’s History of the World (Copper Canyon Press, 1976) and Wild Honey, Tough Salt (Red Hen Press, 2019). He has published a biography, Early Morning: Remembering My Father, William Stafford (Graywolf Press, 2002); a children’s book, We Got Here Together (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1987); and a book about writing and teaching: The Muses Among Us: Eloquent Listening and Other Pleasures of the Writer’s Craft (University of Georgia Press, 2003). His work has been translated into Japanese, French, and Spanish, and featured on The Writer’s Almanac, and his books have received awards from the Pacific Northwest Booksellers and the Western States Book Awards. Stafford has received two NEA Creative Writing Fellowships in poetry, and has taught writing in Scotland, Italy, Mexico, and Bhutan. He co-founded the annual Fishtrap Writers Gathering in Oregon and teaches regularly at the Hugo House in Seattle. In 2018, he was named Oregon’s Poet Laureate for a two-year term. He teaches and travels to raise the human spirit.

Table of Contents

1 In spite of War

White Flag Patriots 15

For the Customs Agent Who Seized Claudia's Jar of Honey from El Salvador 16

Nest Filled 18

Dear Mr. President 19

The Flavor of Unity 20

Old Glory's New Red, Black, and Blue 21

Breast Milk, Ash, and the Needle 24

Do Not Follow Me 26

Dastgah 28

Presidential Alert 29

New House Rules 30

Practicing the Complex Yes 31

Repeat Offenders 32

First Lady 34

Equinox: Greta at Katowice 35

Two Arab Men 36

Learning to Be 37

All My Relations 38

2 Pandemic Poems

In Quarantine 41

Mingling 42

Spring Fever in Lockdown 43

Pandemic Press Conference 44

For a Daughter in Quarantine 45

Oregon Dawn in Spite of the News 46

Bird in Hand 47

Do You Miss It? 48

Will We Go Back, after the Vaccine? 49

Inmate Calls Home 50

Pandemic Coffee Restoration Ritual 51

Dr. Fauci's Smile 52

Shelter in Place 53

3 Revising Genesis

I Am the Seed 57

Advice from a Raindrop 58

Earth Totem 59

Puddle Jumper 60

Foolish Young Flowering Plum 61

Wild Birds Teach Us 62

Revising Genesis 64

Lessons from a Tree 65

Now Every Weed Is Precious 66

At the Meadow Called a Scab with Kendrick 67

For the Toad by the Kitchen Step at Haystack, 4 a.m. 68

Nuptial Flight 69

Enough 70

At the Farm 71

Beautiful Redundancy 72

Psalmon Berries 74

Midden at the Estuary 75

Wonder's Wisdom 76

Do You Need Anything from the Mountain? 78

4 The Cup No One Can See

Our Singer Come from Afar 81

Two Rivers 82

Poetry in Prison 83

Lost & Found People 84

Connect the Dots 85

Wren's Nest in a Shed near Aurora 86

Midrash on a Sacred Encounter 87

Poetry Class at the Women's Prison 88

At the Bird Refuge on MLK Day 89

Seeking Abe at Cline Falls 90

A Blessing for Teachers: My People, My Heroes, My Friends 91

Poetry Doctor 92

Ostracon 93

My Wife Wakes Me at 3 a.m. to Tell Me She Is Overwhelmed 94

Letters to Strangers 95

Words You Learn to Serve the American Dream 96

Sunset North from Gold Beach 97

The Candle Burning in the Photograph on Pilar's Office Door 98

Song after Ishiguro 99

For the Woman Picking Litter from the Beach 100

5 And All My Love

The Fact of Forgiveness 103

Dew & Honey 104

Chores of Inspiration 105

What We Did Before Radio 106

Quiet Day 107

My Father's Hands Said No 108

Aunt Mar Changes How We See 110

How I Came to Be 112

Blue Brick from the Midwest 112

Emily's Barefoot Rank 114

Atavistic Memory 115

My Brother Visits, 1988 116

Curse of the Charmed Life 117

Stories from Dr. Zeus 118

Old Dog 119

A Note Stuffed through Our Car's Shattered Window, Passenger Side, at Stockton and Vallejo 120

Before the MRI 121

What For? 122

Outside My Window 123

Easy Pickings 124

Afterword 125

Editorial Reviews

"I love this book. Kim Stafford writes from a deep well of gratitude and human goodness. Some of his poems are furious, some are sly and funny, some are simply beautiful, and all create a space for readers to catch their breath and reflect on the glories of this lovely, reeling planet and the sins against it. What greater gift could a poet give a worried, weary world?" —Kathleen Dean Moore, author of Earth’s Wild Music

“'Be home here in beauty and bounty,' writes Kim Stafford, in the poem 'Revising Genesis,' from his newest collection Singer Come from Afar: 'make Earth / your wise guide, each creature teaching miracles of being / in wing and song.' And this is a collection of bright wings and wild songs, of home and history and place and gentle invitation. Yet don’t think this gentleness doesn’t stand shoulder to shoulder with a fierce commitment to peace and justice with a deep and abiding moral vision. Truly, Kim Stafford is a singer, a seer, a prophet helping us write anew our stories of creation." —Joe Wilkins, author of Fall Back Down When I Die and When We Were Birds

"Poetry began as song, and in the lyrics of Kim Stafford we still hear the singing. A keen listener to voices human and wild, he writes of prisoners and refugees, toads and wrens, warriors and peacemakers, orcas and rivers. His guiding impulse is compassion. He urges us to defy “the camp of anger” through acts of kindness. He assures us that Nature holds no grudges. Even “in the era of stormy weather,” bees gather nectar, birds weave nests, seeds sprout, and new life emerges. Here is a bard of small creatures and gentle gestures who believes that art can help heal the wounds we’ve inflicted on Earth, our fellow species, and one another, and that conviction shines through every page of this big-hearted book."  —Scott Russell Sanders, author of The Way of Imagination

"Singer Come from Afar – his most recent poetry collection, comprised of five sections and a masterful afterword – serves as a lighted pathway for weary travelers. A panoramic and compassionate inquiry into what it means to be human this exact second, the book is an account of a writer’s mighty vision and the execution of that vision, as offered by the poet himself."  —Oregon ArtWatch

From the Publisher