William Stafford—A Course in Creative Writing

A Course in Creative Writing

They want a wilderness with a map—
but how about errors that give a new start?—
or leaves that are edging into the light?—
or the many places a road can’t find?

Maybe there’s a land where you have to sing
to explain anything: you blow a little whistle
just right and the next tree you meet is itself.
(And many a tree is not there yet.)

Things come toward you when you walk.
You go along singing a song that says
where you are going becomes its own
because you start. You blow a little whistle—

And a world begins under the map.

—William Stafford

Also see William Stafford—You and Art

This entry was posted on January 15, 2011 at 7:24 pm and is filed under Other poems, Poetry, William Stafford, Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “William Stafford—A Course in Creative Writing”

INSPIRATION, a poem by Nathanael Chawkin « The Uncarved Blog Says:
January 25, 2012 at 6:23 pm | Reply
[...] idea of allowing, even encouraging writing to come spontaneously reminds me of a poem written by William Stafford—A Course in Creative Writing, in response to educators at a conference expecting writing instructors to clearly spell out how [...]