The Thom Tammaro William Stafford collection, 1972-1988

Thom Tammaro is a writer, scholar, and professor who conducted research and shared a friendship with William Stafford. Throughout the years of 1972-1988, Stafford and Tammaro exchanged letters, communicating their personal and professional achievements. Tammaro photographed Stafford when he visited Chicago in 1976 to give a poetry reading and in 1977 when he had his work displayed in Ball State University Special Collections. Tammaro wrote his dissertation on Stafford's poetry while pursuing a doctoral degree in philosophy at Ball State University. He earned his PhD on August 15, 1980. In 1982, Tammaro began compiling and editing an anthology, Roving Across Fields, composed of Stafford's poems written between the years of 1942 and 1982. In August 1983, he began teaching as a professor in the Master of Fine Arts program at Minnesota State University Moorhead. He currently holds the role of Emeritus Professor of English. His publications include Visiting Dr. Williams: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of William Carlos Williams (University of Iowa Press, 2011), 31 Mornings In December (Red Dragonfly Press, 2009), Holding on for Dear Life (Spoon River Poetry Press, 2004), and When the Italians Came to My HomeTown (Spoon River Poetry Press, 1995). His work has also been published in the Chicago Review, College Composition & Communication, Midwest Quarterly, North Dakota Quarterly, South Dakota Review, and Voices in Italian Americana.

William E. Stafford (1914-1993) was a prolific American poet, pacifist, and educator. Among his many credentials, Stafford served as consultant in poetry at the Library of Congress, and received the National Book Award for his poetry collection Traveling through the Dark (1963). During his lifetime, Stafford wrote over sixty books of poetry. Stafford's perspectives on peace, the environment, and education serve as some of the most articulate and engaging dialogues by a modern American writer about three of the most important issues of the second half of the twentieth century with lasting impacts on future generations. Howard Zinn, one America's most iconic modern historians, was keenly aware of Stafford's insight into modern American culture. Zinn claimed, "William Stafford's prose and poetry, wise and eloquent, speak directly to the violence of our time, and to our hope for a different world" (from cover of Every War Has Two Losers). Stafford taught at Lewis & Clark College from 1958-1980. The Index to the William Stafford Archives can be found at: http://nwda-db.wsulibs.wsu.edu/findaid/ark:/80444/xv83782