“Burning a Book,” by American poet William E. Stafford, was posthumously published in his collection, Ask Me: 100 Essential Poems (2013). “Burning a Book” is part of Stafford’s humble repertoire of political poetry and examines the history of book burning as it relates to more contemporary ideas of the pursuit of knowledge. Most of Stafford’s collected poems thematically center in or around nature—on a riverbank, at the base of a mountain, or somewhere within the landscape of Stafford’s childhood. Poems of a political nature like “Burning a Book” much less often appear within his breadth of work and yet, it is Stafford’s characteristic plainspoken yet powerful voice that acts as the through line, connecting all his works to each other.

Stafford’s writing style was influenced by poets such as Emily Dickinson and William Wordsworth. Stafford consistently airs on the side of brevity in his poetry, writing short poems with singular speakers to comprehend the daily necessity of moral decision-making. He is not afraid to play, whether with punctuation or philosophy, making his work stand out within the modern poetic canon.

Poet Biography

American poet William Edgar Stafford was born in Hutchinson, Kansas on January 17th, 1914. As a child, he explored the landscapes of the American West, fostering a deep appreciation for the natural world that influenced much of his later writings. Stafford’s parents, Ruby and Earl, were avid readers, and encouraged his imaginative pursuits from an early age.

Stafford received his bachelor of arts from the University of Kansas at Lawrence (1937) and pursued his master of arts at the same institution. However, when the United States entered World War II in 1941, Stafford’s graduate studies were cut short. He was drafted into active military service in 1942.

Stafford was a conscientious objector and a registered pacifist. He believed the violence of war was unjustifiable, and as such, did not serve his country in armed combat, but rather, in civilian public service. Stafford worked in camps across Arkansas, California, and Illinois, assisting in road and trail maintenance, soil conservation, and fire fighting for the United States Forest Service. Stafford used his experiences during the war to write his master’s thesis—a prose memoir titled, Down My Heart (1947)—after returning home from the service. He completed his master’s degree at the University of Kansas at Laurence (1947), and earned his PhD from the University of Iowa (1954).

Stafford entered the mainstream poetic canon by entirely avoiding popular literary and cultural trends. He began publishing poetry late in life and was in his forties by the time his first major collection was released. This trend set Stafford’s work apart, imbuing his verses with a timeless resonance. His poetic voice is soft spoken, mirroring his own pacifist convictions, and his poems are deceptively simple. Stafford’s poetry gains complexity with each subsequent read. His work examines subjects ranging from the deeply personal landscapes of his childhood to the universal moral choices with which every person must reckon in their lifetimes. Stafford’s poems delve into the underbelly of a subject, detailing the process of discovery, taking nothing at face value.

Stafford’s first major collection of poetry, Traveling Through the Dark (1962), won the National Book Award (1963). He published more than 60 volumes of poetry and prose throughout his career, earning many honors and awards such as a Guggenheim Fellowship (1966) and a Western States Lifetime Achievement Award in Poetry. Stafford taught at Portland, Oregon’s Lewis and Clark College from 1948 until his retirement in 1980. He was Poet Laureate of the state of Oregon in 1970 among many other distinctions.

Stafford died at his home in Lake Oswego, Oregon in late August 1993 at the age of 79.

Poem Text

Stafford, William. “Burning a Book.” 1986. CommonLit.

Summary

William Stafford’s poem, “Burning a Book,” explores the controversial practice of book burning, critically examining this destructive method of censorship through a modern lens (see: Contextual Analysis “Socio-Historical Context”). Stafford considers the role that each individual member of society plays in censoring information, arguing that the spectacle of book burning is but one method of controlling public access to information.

Stafford uses vivid imagery throughout Stanza 1 to describe what the process of burning of a physical book looks like, detailing in concrete language the “glow” (Line 2) of the “curling” (Line 4) pages. The speaker of the poem compares this fire to the more abstract concept of truth and lies in the later part of Stanza 1. The flames are personified as uncaring, destroying any text regardless of the ideologies held within their pages.

Stanza 2 explores the speaker’s individual opinion on the practice of book burning. Here, the speaker of the poem challenges the commonly held assumption that all literary texts are sacred, positing instead that some books “ought to burn” (Line 9) because of their falsified content. The entire second stanza considers the fact that while burning books may seem bad, not writing them is worse. The speaker admits to burning books in the final stanza and asserts that “nobody” (Line 19) is innocent in the act of censorship—whatever the method.