December 18, 2013

Stafford publishes new book of poetry inspired by Bhutan

A new book of poetry from Kim Stafford, Legacy of Beginning: Poems in Bhutan, has been published by Larkspur Press.

A new book of poetry from Kim Stafford, Legacy of Beginning: Poems in Bhutan, has been published by Larkspur Press. The book’s poems are inspired by Stafford’s 2011 journey to the small, mountainous kingdom bordering India and China, known internationally for being the “happiest country on earth.” The hand-sewn book contains wood engravings by the artist Wesley Bates.

Stafford writes in the book’s preface:

In the winter of 2011 … I gathered a band of ten writers from America and one from Poland for a creative pilgrimage to the kingdom of Bhutan. These poems were written as we sat together around the bukhari, the iron stove where pine crackled and winter kept us close. The poems are informed by the Buddist notion of four dimensions for each encounter, from the visible to the increasingly mysterious and important.

In Bhutan, Stafford and the other visiting poets offered a workshop for sixty Buhtanese writers at VAST (the Voluntary Artists Studio of Thimpu), and traveled through the country. Stafford is the director of the Northwest Writing Institute at Lewis & Clark, where he has taught courses on writing since 1976. Learn more about Kim Stafford.