This collection documents the writing and professional life of Kim Robert Stafford (1949- ), American poet, writer, and educator born and raised in Portland, Oregon.
Material includes journals, daily writings, manuscripts and poem drafts, correspondence, photographs, and audiovisual recordings. The bulk of material dates from 1970s – c. 2020. Digital files will be included in this collection, once they have been transferred to Lewis & Clark College.
Where possible, Stafford's original order has been maintained. Collection series and sub-series often contain "headnotes" written by Stafford that describe and explain the series contents, and selected items within the series. These notes are included in the collection and are also available as pdf documents. An extensive bibliography has been compiled (and continues to be updated), as well as an alphabetical list of poems by book. These additional resources are available upon request; please contact archives staff at archives@lclark.edu for further information.
This Collection is open for research. A small selection of correspondence is restricted and requires permission from Kim Stafford or his estate before research use can be granted.
Kim Robert Stafford (1949- ), is an American poet, writer, and educator born and raised in Portland, Oregon. Stafford earned a Bachelor of Arts, Master of Arts in English, and Ph.D. in medieval literature from the University of Oregon. Kim Stafford is the son of poet William Stafford (1914-1993), and is the literary executor for William Stafford's estate.
Kim Stafford is the author of more than twelve books of poetry and prose. Stafford's poetry has been published in national magazines and journals and collected in several volumes stretching over five decades, from
Kim Stafford first taught at Lewis & Clark College in 1979, when he was hired to teach the photography portion of a two-week class called the Foxfire Workshop. After seven years as an adjunct, Stafford became the part-time codirector of the Oregon Writing Project in 1984, and the full-time director of the Northwest Writing Institute in 1986. Kim Stafford retired in 2021 and is now Emeritus Professor at Lewis & Clark College.
In addition to the Northwest Writing Institute, Stafford has co-founded the Oregon Folk Arts program, and the Fishtrap Writers' Gathering in Wallowa County. He has been involved in artists-in-the-schools programs around the state, has served as a member of the Oregon Governor's Task Force on Arts & Culture, received a Governor's Arts Award, and been a consultant to the Oregon Arts Commission. Stafford has received two creative writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and one of his dozen published works,
[identification of item], Kim Stafford collection, Lewis & Clark College Special Collections and Archives, Portland, Oregon.
The University of Oregon holds the Kim Robert Stafford collection, 1972-1989:
Lewis & Clark College also holds the William Stafford Archives. The Index to the Stafford Archives can be found at:
This collection was donated by Kim Stafford in 2020, with additional material donated in 2022, 2023, and 2024.
Series 1 is arranged into four sub-series: Sub-Series 1 (Early Writing); Sub-Series 2 (Daily Writing); Sub-Series 3 (Pocket Notebooks and Bound Journals); and Sub-Series 4: (In-Class Writing). Materials are arranged chronologically within each sub-series. In Sub-Series 1, Stafford's Early Writing, includes writings from childhood through college. In Sub-Series 2, the daily writing pages are sporadic until January 1, 2014, and consistent daily thereafter. The Pocket Notebooks in Sub-Series 3 are hundreds of 3" x 4.5" self-sewn pamphlet booklets that he would carry with him for recording thoughts, gleanings from eavesdropping, dreams, quotations from reading, and other grist for later rumination and writing. This sub-series also includes many bound journals filled with notes to self, poem drafts, travel accounts, and other texts. The In-Class Writings in Sub-Series 4 include hand-written pages in poetry and prose that Stafford would draft in class, after giving his students a writing prompt, as teacher and students wrote together. Some of these in-class drafts Stafford later typed and revised for publication. The heart of this series consists of Stafford's hand-written daily writings (in Sub-Series 1:2): several thousand pages resulting from writing every morning that Stafford's father, William Stafford, practiced from 1950-1993. Kim Stafford's daily writings are described in detail in his essay "Writing as Ritual" (found in Sub-Series 2:2), and beginning in 2014 consistently include the four elements he found appearing often in William Stafford's daily writing: the date, some exploratory prose, a free-standing idea (or "aphorism"), and then a poem, or beginning of a poem. (Kim Stafford then revised these daily poems on the computer, and many of these revision sequences are available in Sub-Series 2:3).
Series 2 contains hand-written and typed drafts, and is arranged to into six sub-series:
Sub-Series 1: Book manuscripts. For each book represented here, materials may include research resources for the development of the book, manuscript drafts and revisions, correspondence relating to the development of the book, marketing resources for promoting the published book, and in some cases reviews and other documents. For each book, the materials are organized in rough chronological order following the development of the manuscript, engagement with editors, and all that followed with publication.
Sub-Series 2: Prose, essays, and fiction. This series includes an array of stand-alone prose projects, including essays, statements composed for distribution in class, manifestos on writing and teaching, open letters, short stories, monologs, and other forms of short prose that may or may not have been ultimately published.
Sub-Series 3: Poems. This series contains poems in draft, in revision, and in final form. Some poems here have been published in journals, some have been gathered in books, but many are unpublished. Some have resulted from revision of drafts on daily writing pages, some have been written in class with students, some have been composed for an occasion, a place, or a person.
Sub-Series 4: Lyrics and Songs. This series contains drafts and final lyrics for songs, several dozen of which became recordings on the Kim Stafford CDs Wheel Made of Wind and Pilgrim at Home: Vagabond Songs. In addition, there are draft song lyrics that have not been recorded or found their final form.
Sub-Series 5: Speeches. This series contains texts for speeches read verbatim, and scripts for more improvisational presentations. Speeches may be identified by venue, by or date, or both. Many of these speeches are also represented in audio form in Series 10, and in the Digital Archive.
Sub-Series 6: Plays, translations, other writing. This series holds two plays, a number of translations, and other written forms.
Series 3 is arranged into Sub-Series 1: Publications, and Sub-Series 2: Publicity material, both arranged in roughly chronological order by publication date.
Publications include issues from all of Kim Stafford's published works: books, anthologies, journals, and magazines make up the bulk of this series. Publicity material includes submission records, acceptance and rejection letters, book release flyers, blurbs, reviews, and interviews of Kim Stafford conducted by others.
Series 4 consists of correspondence written by or addressed to Kim Stafford, and includes handwritten and typed letters, postcards, greeting cards, and after 2000 printed copies of selected email messages saved for their substantial content. (The collection thus spans the transition into the digital age.) Items are generally arranged chronologically by date (including several separate chronological sequences from early to late), with the exception of "clusters," or groupings of correspondence compiled by Kim Stafford that are thematically centered around an individual or topic. Individual correspondents represented in these different clusters can often be found by searching by their names.
In this series Kim Stafford has been abbreviated to "KS" in item descriptions.
Series 5 documents Kim Stafford's professional work and activities outside of writing and publishing. Material is arranged topically.
Materials in this series document Stafford's extensive teaching career at Lewis & Clark College as the director of the Northwest Writing Institute (NWI). This series also includes items relating to Stafford's involvement with the Fishtrap Writers gathering in Wallowa County, the Haystack Program in the Arts at Cannon Beach, writing classes at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology on the Oregon coast, and the Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Nevada. Other materials document Kim Stafford's time as Oregon Poet Laureate, 2018-2020, and his writing, travel, and teaching in places like Scotland, Italy, Bhutan, and Mexico.
Series 6 consists of material created or compiled by Kim Stafford in the form of chapbooks, broadsides, letterpress printing, book arts, and art projects such as public art featuring Stafford's poetry or collaborative art projects. Material is arranged topically.
Chapbooks include mainly self-produced chapbooks. Letterpress printing material includes Kim Stafford's own printing of broadsides and other letterpress projects, printing his students have done (mostly in the form of broadsides and historic title pages), and examples of fine press craft by others.
Series 7 contains material that documents Kim Stafford's personal life, such as calendars, datebooks, to-do lists, family correspondence and photos, autobiographical notes, and a link to the KS collection at the University of Oregon. There are also grant applications, resume versions, notes on this archive, and some William Stafford items relating to the family. This series also includes Stafford family histories and newspaper clippings saved by Dorothy Stafford, Kim Stafford's mother. Material is arranged topically.
Series 8 consists of material created by or related to William Stafford, and most notably the relationship between Kim and William Stafford. Included in this series are notes and correspondence relating to Kim Stafford's role as literary executor of the William Stafford estate, books Kim Stafford edited that are by or about his father's writing, projects and events such as the William Stafford Centennial that were carried out at the Northwest Writing Institute, correspondence about William Stafford, materials from William Stafford's last writing and office, and Kim Stafford's writing and teaching about William Stafford. There are also documents relating to the development of the William Stafford Archive.
Series 9 contains photographic prints, slides, and negatives taken by Kim Stafford, in addition to some Stafford family photographs and other images taken by William Stafford and others. This series includes documentation of folk art, local history, arts events, school, travels, and the natural world. In addition to some chronological clusters, material is arranged topically. In addition to this series, the Kim Stafford digital archive has many images, mostly from 2000 and later.
Series 10 contains audiovisual material created or compiled by Kim Stafford, and is arranged by format into five sub-series: Sub-Series 1: VHS and VHS-C Sub-Series 2: DVD Sub-Series 3: CD Sub-Series 4: Cassette Sub-Series 5: DAT. These materials document many Kim Stafford readings, speeches, interviews, radio programs, oral history interviews, complete audiobooks of Stafford's essay collection Having Everything Right and his memoir Lochsa Road, and Stafford's own creative projects, including audio files for two self-produced CDs of original songs. There are also projects produced while teaching Digital Storytelling and Audio Postcards at the Northwest Writing Institute. And there are audio recordings of William Stafford and writers associated with the NWI.