Kansas Raised

7/30/2019 Kansas Raised

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In addition, I appreciate more fully how hard life was in thatprairie landscape during the depression and am remindedof my mothers influence on my writing and her love of mygrandmother from oral history that resonate when I readthe poems Mothers Day, A Memorial for My Motherand 108 East Nineteenth (sweet peas are my mothersfavorite flower). It was a gift when Kim Stafford sharedanecdotes about the tremendous influence that WilliamStaffords mother had on his writings in the Staffordarchives .


4/13

Having moved over and over again in my own life I learnedearly on that one persons treasures can quickly becomeanother persons bargain at an estate sale, and that there isa good reason why the Latin word for baggage isimpedimento. Because I moved so often I realize that Iabhor making decisions about what to keep and what todiscard.


5/13

This avoidance manifests itself in many different ways. Forexample, in my own writing I would rather hoard all my ideasthan pursue one. Needless to say, when confronted with theembarras de richesses of the 16,000 photos and anincredible collection of primary documents that WilliamStafford kept throughout his life in the Watzek LibraryWilliam Stafford archival collection I felt overwhelmed. Icouldnt even imagine myself in the position of Kim Stafford,William Staffords son, when he was told by his father thathe had been chosen as the executor of his fathers wealth ofwhat we labeled ephemera in the book trade.


6/13

Mother, the sweet peas have gushed out ofthe ground where you fell, where you lay that daywhen the doctor came, while your wash kept flappingon the line across the backyard. I stoodand looked out a long time toward the Fairgrounds.The Victrola in the living room used to playNola, and the room spun toward a centerthat our neighborhood clustered around. Nasturtiumsyou put in our salad would brighten our tummies,you said, and we careened off like trainsto play tag in alfalfa fields till the mooncame out and you called us home with Popcornfor all to come. But that was longbefore you said, Jesus is calling me home.

And Father, when your summons came and you quietlyleft, no one could hold youback. You didnt need to talkbecause your acts for years had already prayed.For you both, may God guide my hand in its piousact, from far off, across this page.

108 EAST NINETEENTH


7/13

Peg said, This one, and we bought it

for Mother, our allowance for weeks

paid out to a clerk who snickered

a hideous jar, oil-slick in color,

glass that light got lost in.

We saw it for candy, a sign for

our love. And it lasted:

the old house on Eleventh,

a dim room on Crescent where

the railroad shook the curtains,

that brief glory at Aunt Mabels place.

Peg thought it got more beautiful,

Egyptian, sort of, a fire-sheened

relic. And with a doomed grasp

we carried our level of aesthetics

with us across Kansas, proclaiming

our sentimental badge.

Now Peg says, Remember that candy jar?

She smoothes the silver. Mother

hated it. Im left standing

alone by the counter, ready to buy what

will hold Mother by its magic, so

she will never be mad at us again.

MOTHERS DAYPeg


8/13

For long my life left hers. It went

among strangers; it weakened and followed

foreign ways, even honesty, and courage. It found

those most corrupting of all temptations,friends their grace, their faithfulness.

But now my life has come back. In our bleak

little town I taste salt and smoke again.

I turn into our alley and lean

where I hid from work or from anything

deserving of praise. Mother, you and I

We knew if they knew our hearts they wouldblame.

We knew we deserved nothing. I go along

now being no one, and remembering this

how alien we were from others, how hard wechewed

on our towns tough rind. How we loved its flavor.

A MEMORIAL FOR MY MOTHER


9/13

My Kansas grandfather always wore overalls likethe ones Stafford is wearing in this photo takenwhen he worked in a refinery. Work was curtailedwhen he was sent to a camp for conscientiousobjectors to World War III. I was quite movedwhen I learned about this because in myadolescence I had many experiences related tomy moms resistance efforts to the Vietnam War. Ioften heard her lament that she had grown upwith never-ending war from her childhood to thepresent.On the back of the top photo Stafford wrote thefollowing note. "Bob Pope & Chuck Worley at alittle town we hiked to one Sunday afternoon. Bobis water-coloring, Chuck writing a letter. We hadan adventure there - I'll tell you about it later." Inthe photo citation it says the adventure Staffordalludes to was the gathering of a mob intent onharassing Stafford and his fellow pacifists. Thescene that occurred in 1942is described in detailin Stafford's book Down in My Heart.. I can relateto his description which begins with a salientquestion: I have often asked myself in the fivedictatorships I have lived under: When are mendangerous?

PANEL 2 TEEN YEARS


10/13

The Stafford Archives at Lewisand Clark contain a lot ofmaterial about the 12, 000conscientious objectors whowere sent to internment campsin World War II. Growing upwith my mothers pacifism Iwas intrigued by the accountsI read about what it was like tobe there and how it shapedhim. I also loved when Idiscovered the photo ofStafford continuing his anti-warefforts decades later with Dr.Benjamin Spock at City Hall inPortland, Oregon.

PANEL 3 CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR


11/13

The internment camp for conscientiousobjectors was a difficult experience andseemed like the most unlikely place tofall in love, yet that is where Stafford firstmet and fell in love with his wife, Dorothy.When I found this photo and heard theaccount of how it happened from KimStafford I was reminded of when I was inChile during the plebiscite.On the outside of a church where thetestimonials of the tortured were takenwas painted El amor es masfuerte (Love is stronger). This is whatcame to mind when I heard this lovestory. Love is stronger in the most difficultof circumstances. An unforeseen result oftheir union was that William Staffordsliterary legacy would be passed on to aloving caretaker, his son, Kim Stafford.

PANEL 4


12/13

PANEL 5 HOW A LANDSCAPE SHAPES US

When I put these photos together I was struck by how similar they

were to Taoist paintings where the human figure is so small incomparison to the world that surrounds it. In his poetry, as well,


13/13

BUILDING THE MONUMENT OF ONES OWN LIFE

I was struck by the juxtaposition of these two photos: the tribute to

Stafford in the form of a mural in his place of birth, Hutchinson, Kansas,

and a photo of Stafford standing next to a monument in Persepolis, Iran.

Wherever his adventures took him, his writings were the monument he

created on a dail basis I feel that Stafford was sha ed b whatever

Documents

Kansas Raised