About As the Sky Begins to Change:

As the Sky Begins to Change is a book of poems to wake the world, lyric anthems for earth and kin.

In his third poetry collection from Red Hen Press, Kim Stafford gathers poems that sing with empathy, humor, witness, and story. Poems in this book have been set to music, quoted in the New York Times, posted online in the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series, gathered in a chapbook sold to benefit Ukrainian refugees, posted online in response to Supreme Court decisions, composed for a painter’s gallery opening, and in other ways engaged with a world at war with itself, testifying for the human project hungry for kinship, exiled from bounty, and otherwise thirsting for the oxygen of healing song.

“Kim Stafford is a priest and poet, songwriter and philosopher. Each of these meticulously crafted poems offers the ability to see our interconnected world with a tender, resilient heart that only grows stronger over time. You will come to the book like that lucky raccoon who finds a plum tree in one of the early poems, feasting until you are “bandit happy, lusty gusto, shaky elbow, roly poly / on your side helpless with joy.” —James Crews, author of Kindness Will Save the World

Author Bio:

Founding director of the Northwest Writing Institute at Lewis & Clark College, Kim Stafford teaches and travels to raise the human spirit. He is the author of a dozen books of poetry and prose, including The Muses Among Us: Eloquent Listening and Other Pleasures of the Writer’s Craft and 100 Tricks Every Boy Can Do: How My Brother Disappeared. He has also written the memoir, Early Morning: Remembering My Father, William Stafford, and a children’s book, We Got Here Together. His most recent book is the poetry collection As the Sky Begins to Change (Red Hen, 2024). He has taught writing in dozens of schools and community centers, and in Scotland, Italy, Mexico, and Bhutan. In 2018 he was named Oregon’s 9th Poet Laureate by Governor Kate Brown for a two-year term. His call to writers everywhere: “In our time is a great thing not yet done. It is the marriage of Woody Guthrie’s gusto and the Internet. It is the composing and wide sharing of songs, poems, blessings, manifestos, and rants by those with voice for those with need.”

Kim Stafford will be joined by Beth Wood, local poet and songwriter who will share a few songs and poems inspired by Stafford’s work.