William Stafford is one of Kansas' most well-known poets.
Though born in the early 1900's, he only began publishing poetry in the 1960's, and his
work has been said to be marked by a quiet wisdom and maturity perhaps influenced by his
age. The poem, "The Farm on the Great Plains" is no
exception.
Stafford came of age during the Great
Depression, when he and his family would move from town to town with his father looking
for work. This was particularly difficult in and around Kansas, as the Dust Bowl made
it extremely difficult to farm. In fact, many families migrated to the west coast to
escape the drought and find work, abandoning their farms. But regardless of these
hardships, Stafford supposedly had a happy childhood.
"The
Farm on the Great Plains" evokes the atmosphere of a Midwest ravaged by the Dust Bowl.
The speaker is trying to reach relatives at an abandoned farmhouse, but the "telephone
line goes cold." Much of Stafford's language is focused on abandonment and emptiness:
"no one is home at the farm/the line gives only a hum" and "no space, no birds, no farm"
are examples. Yet there is hopefulness as well. The speaker eventually reaches
someone, though it is not who he was expecting; and he eventually inhabits the empty
space, or rather becomes it, thus filling it: "Myself will be the plain,/wise as winter
is gray." In the same way, Stafford retains the Dust Bowl of his youth by writing about
and preserving it.
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