Stories That Could Be True: New and Collected Poems

If you only purchase one William Stafford book, make it this volume of his collected earlier works. I worship the man, what can I say. Just tons of beautiful poems here. If you want an intro to his poetry, this is the way to go.

I picked up William Stafford's "Stories That Could Be True" at my community college library because Garrison Keillor had said that morning (January 17) that it was Stafford's birthday. I opened the book and found a poem, "Birthday," which begins, "We have a dog named 'Here'.... That wasn't quite what I was looking for, so I flipped through the pages and found "A Message from the Wanderer": "Today outside your prison I stand/ and rattle my walking stick: Prisoners, listen;/ you have relatives outside. And there are/ thousands of ways to escape..... This book got me reading poetry again, after many years of not reading. I can't find the book now--it's out of print and unavailable--but I'm looking for other books by the same author. Read a few of these poems, and I'll bet you'll be looking, too!