Shopping with WS

Lake Oswego, Oregon, the community outside of Portland where WS called home has decided to name a shopping block after the poet. But this doesn't seem like a regular strip mall. The community newspaper reports:

Stafford Commons, first announced in May 2005, combines retail and office space with eight live/work units for creative professionals.

Tenants so far include Umpqa Bank, who sees itself as providing "something other than an errand." Further,

Half of the office space in Stafford Commons is also filled, with offices for an attorney, psychiatrist and financial group planned.

...

owners have turned down a number of fast food tenants for the space. Ideally, ...they sought a specialty shop that would blend with the downtown’s current mix of retailers.

Another story tells that

Drew Prell and Jim Morton, developers of the new Stafford Commons, commissioned Frank Boyden to develop the sculpture, “The Way It Is,” to honor Lake Oswego poet William Stafford, who died in 1993.

The true value of Stafford's works

Two questions: How much would you pay for a Stafford collectible? Which publication would you pay the most for?

I don't know what my answer would be, but it's interesting that the the highest priced Stafford item that I could find online is a First Edition copy of Down in My Heart selling for $900! It isn't even poetry, but rather WS's memoir of alternative service during World War II. I would expect his award winning collection Travelling Throught the Dark to fetch more, but then, if that's what everyone knows, it holds less alluring mystique.

Here are the notes on this item:

Elgin, IL: Brethren Publishing House, (1947) First edition of author's first book, an account of his experience as a conscientious objector interned in Arkansas & California during WWII. Bound in gilt stamped cadmium green, 94pp. Very good-, gift inscription on front free endpaper, in good+ dust wrapper with some soiling but with price unclipped.

I can hear WS singing that old CPS song, perhaps with a new verse:

"I've got that opposition to consumption way down in my heart..."

At the same time, I want that $900 book! Maybe that's a sign I need to surf less and read more poetry.