Today I went to my local bookstore and stumbled across an article in the May/June 2008 issue pf American Poetry Review. I picked up the magazine and opened it to the first page and thought of the photo there, "That looks like Stafford." My eyes went up the page and sure enough, there was his name. The photo is of a young Stafford at a Civilian Public Service camp during his years as a conscientious objector in World War II.
The article, by Fred Merchant, explains that "Stafford was not a member of one of the historic peace churches [who ran the CPS camps: Quakers, Mennonites and Brethren], though he did in fact meet and marry Dorothy Hope Frantz, the daughter of a Brethren minister, while serving in the Los Prietos camp." When I was a student at Manchester College several years back, where Stafford taught for a year in the mid 1950s, I ran across a membership book of the local Church of the Brethren congregation, and there is at least one Stafford listed among the membership roles. If I remember correctly, it even read "W. Stafford." Without being at the college, I am unable to confirm this, but I might contact the archives and ask for a copy of that page. Stafford was fairly anti-institutionalist, so it would not surprise me if he never joined the denomination, even if he had attended a Brethren congregation and been sympathetic with its ethical and spiritual flavor.
In any event, what is most exciting in the article is the announcement of a forthcoming publication from Graywolf Press of a new collection of poems by Stafford: Another World Instead: The Early Poems of William Stafford, 1937-1947. At 128 pages, Another World promises to be an intriguing look into the young William Stafford, from age 23 to 33, from his college years to after the end of the war. The APR article called it "forthcoming" but it looks as if it's possible to order a copy from the Graywolf Press website already. I'll be waiting to get my hands on it. The eight poems they've printed in APR give just enough of a teaser to whet the appetite for more unreleased Stafford work, but only enough to last a little while.
