The Muses Among Us: Eloquent Listening and Other Pleasures of the Writer's Craft

Title Page, Copyright, Dedication

THE Miner /^MON/G Wf OTHER BOOKS BY KIM STAFFORD Nonfiction Early Morning: Remembering My Father, William Stafford Having Everything Right: Essays of Place Lochsa Road: A Pilgrim in the West Entering the Grove Fiction Wind on the Waves Poetry Oregon Pilgrimage in Green A Thousand Friends of Rain Places and Stories The Granary Braided Apart (with William Stafford) A Gypsy's History of the World For Children We Got Here Together THE Murer /^SMON/G Vr Eloquent Listening and Other Pleasures of the Writer's Craft Kim Stafford The University of Georgia Press Athens and London Published by the University of Georgia Press Athens, Georgia 30602© 2003 by Kim Stafford All rights reserved Designed by April Leidig-Higgins Set in Monotype Garamond by Copperline Book Services, Inc. Printed and bound by Thomson-Shore, Inc. The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. Printed in the United States of America 09 08 07 06 05 p 7 6 5 4 3 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Stafford, Kim Robert. The muses among us : eloquent listening and other pleasures of the writer’s craft / Kim Stafford. p. cm. isbn 0-8203-2324-1 (alk. paper) isbn 0-8203-2496-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. English language—Rhetoric. 2. Creative writing. 3. Report writing. 4. Authorship. I. Title. pe1408 .s6667 2003 808'.042—dc21 2002015512 Paperback isbn-13: 978-0-8203-2496-8 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available ISBN for this digital edition: ---- K I N D S O F W R I T E R S Emily distilling spent days into an attar of verse. Or Basho: bamboo. Or St. Francis, living the life that commands others to tell his stories. Or a Bard with a mind like mossy shelves heavy with tales. Or Anansi, spinning creation. Rumi and Rama spinning spirit. Or Walt Whitman's mother, to bear such a child. Scheherazade, telling stories for life, night by night. Or Homer, whose lifework of two poems is enough. Or on the mountain, singer of the Song of Songs. Yes, I prefer anonymous her naked, indelible call. Your own grandmother softly putting you to sleep with a hum. Or best of all, someone we have not yet read, someone wide-eyed, big-hearted, listening among us now,whose fist can barelyhold a pen. This page intentionally left blank ...