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On the Experience of Writing The Muses Among Us
By: Kim Stafford
Publication:
The Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 2
Date: 2004
Summary: Kim Stafford shares some thoughts on the process of writing and publishing The Muses Among Us.
By the time I graduated from college, my grandparents were gone: Ruby and Earl, Lottie and Harrison. I had been imprisoned in the company of people my own age from kindergarten through college, and when I returned to the world I was lonesome for the very young and the very old. So I found work with young writers through the artist-in-the-schools program and with my elders through an oral history project. It was the 1970s, and I sat in classrooms listening, listening to the sprightly banter of children in little Oregon towns like Fort Rock and North Powder. My bag was filled with their scribbling, which I pored over at night. And I sat in the parlors of Forrest Francisco, Lyndall Ellingson, Ernie Funk, Belle Dick, and dozens more. Listening. Writing down what I heard. Transcribing. Feeding on the sweet, tough eloquence of ordinary people.
I'm a bird as blue as blue. When I walk I walk like mice.
I see as a owl. Do you see as I see? I dream as I like. . . .
—Adah, fourth grade
There ain't much difference, yes, between a square and a round dance.
There ain't much difference. I used to call 'em. I ain't called one in probably
twenty years: "All to your places and straighten up your faces! Promenade away!
Swing 'em if you love 'em, and cheat 'em if you don't!"
—James Cole, age 92
When I became a teacher of writing I did not feel alone. My people were with me. I could not conceive of the act of writing as a matter of solitary genius. Some form of listening had to be available. So I wrote a book about it—many of the chapters begun in class where my muses and my audience were with me in the room as I wrote: young writers, Elderhostel students, teachers, friends.
See related book review by Richard Louth.
