Professor Kim Stafford: Healing Words 

Personal Statement: The problems of our time are political, ecological, economic, but the solutions are cultural. How do people speak their truth? How do we listen eloquently? If communication is the fundamental alternative to violence and injustice, what is the work of each voice among us? At the Northwest Writing Institute, we answer word by word.

Kim Stafford grew up in Oregon, Iowa, Indiana, California, and Alaska, following his parents as they taught and traveled through the West. He is the author of a dozen books of poetry and prose, and the director of the Northwest Writing Institute and the William Stafford Center at Lewis & Clark College, where he has taught since 1979. He holds a Ph.D. in medieval literature from the University of Oregon, and has worked as a printer, photographer, oral historian, editor, and visiting writer at a host of colleges and schools. His book, Having Everything Right, won a citation for excellence from the Western States Book Awards in 1986. Stafford has received creative writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Governor’s Arts Award for his contributions to Oregon’s literary culture, and his work has been featured on National Public Radio. He read a poem as part of John Kitzhaber’s inauguration January 10, 2011 and conducted a series of writing workshops in Bhutan. In 2011 he presented at community literature programs on behalf of the Lincoln City Library, the U.S. Forest Service Cispus Training Center, the Oregon Friends of Jung, and other sponsors. In April 2011, he gave a lecture at the Newport Public library in conjunction with the “Everybody Reads” program focused on the book Down in My Heart: Peace Witness in Wartime, by William Stafford, edited by Kim Stafford. His essay “Resume of Failures” appeared in the 2011 spring edition of Oregon Humanities, and a collection of poems, Prairie Prescription, was published in 2011 by Limberlost Press. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and children.