Seven plaques featuring the poetry of William Stafford are installed throughout the length of the valley, and will be joined by an eighth in Twisp.
The inaugural William Stafford Peace Festival will take place in Twisp on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 19-20, co-sponsored by Root.ED Nature School and the Confluence Poets.
The event, in commemoration of International Peace Day, celebrates the 10th anniversary of the William Stafford poetry readings in the Methow Valley and is presented “in solidarity with actively waging peace throughout our community,” a press release said.
“Featuring a variety of activities, workshops, talks and music, the two days are designed to cultivate community and connection,” according to the release.
The festival takes place at various locations throughout the Methow Valley, from TwispWorks, to the Methow Valley Community Center, to the Twisp Park, to Methow Arts, and other spaces. Activities include art-making, poetry-writing and discussion, meditation, peaceful protest, nature walks, and a peace song singalong, among other things.
Speakers, poets, artists, musicians, and other community members — such as Cindy Williams Gutiérrez, Subhaga Crystal Bacon, Lois Caswell, Teresa Williams, Sharon Cohen, Rob Crandall, Lynette Westendorf, Ken Bevis, Sam Owen, and others — will facilitate the different sessions.
William Stafford (1914-1993) was an American poet and pacifist. He is beloved in the Methow Valley thanks to his Methow River Poems: 17 poems commissioned by Sheela McLean and Curtis Edwards, recreation planners for the U.S. Forest Service, designed to capture the essence and landscape of the North Cascades.
Seven of those plaques are installed at various viewpoints along the Methow River, from Washington Pass to Pateros. McLean and Edwards sought a new way for a federal agency to communicate with the public, expanding the scope of traditional interpretive signage.
A 1994 High Country News article quoted McLean as saying, “We wanted a way to make people feel. We were tired of our natural history approach.” The article noted, “It is a first for an agency known more for its obscurantist way with words.”
Confluence Gallery (now The Confluence: Art in Twisp) was among the project sponsors at the time.
Another installation
Soon, an eighth poem will be installed in Twisp. A press release said “the plaque is donated by the Confluence Poets and Root.ED Nature School as part of the Peace Festival. The project is generously supported by the Town of Twisp and by the Friends of William Stafford, an Oregon-based nonprofit dedicated to raising awareness of poetry and literature in the spirit of William Stafford’s life, legacy and work.”
Stafford’s Methow River Poems were completed in the early 1990s, but he did not live to see the installation of the poems along the river, although he did do a reading of his work in the Methow Valley before his death.
Over the years, some plaques were removed for renovation, but earlier this spring, a Methow Conservancy volunteer visited all seven plaque sites and confirmed their integrity, documenting her “road trip for poetry” in photographs. Some of those photos can be seen at methowconservancy.org/discover/william-staffords-methow-river-poems.
According to the press release, the Twisp Town Council has approved the new plaque to be installed in Maves Park (a pocket park on Glover Street in memoriam of local dentist Dr. Bob Maves) as part of the planned renovations. The featured poem is “Being a Person,” which invites readers to “Be a person here. Stand by the river, invoke/the owls. Invoke winter, then spring.” It ends with the couplet: “How you stand here is important. How you/ listen for the next things to happen. How you breathe.”
The Peace Festival will wrap up with the 10th annual William Stafford Poetry Reading on Sunday, Sept. 20, from 3-5 p.m. at The Confluence: Art in Twisp. Sheela McLean will be the keynote speaker. A full schedule of events for the weekend can be found at confluencepoets.com.
William Stafford Peace Festival events
Saturday, Sept. 19
• 9-10:30 a.m., Peace Button-Making Workshop at Methow Arts
• 10:30 a.m.-noon, Peace Writing Workshop at Twisp Park with Subhaga Crystal Bacon
• Noon-1 p.m., peaceful protest near the corner of Highway 20 and Glover Street
• 1:30-2:30 p.m., Community Café, Conversation on Choosing Hope, Waging Peace (bring your lunch) at Twisp Park, with Susan Speir and Byron Odion
• 2:30-4 p.m., Nature Walk and Storytelling for Children and Families at Methow Valley Native Garden, Root.ED Nature School with Rob Crandall and Methow Natives Liz Blackman and Imelda Cervantes Barnard
• 4:30-5:30 p.m., Intergenerational Peace Flag-Making Workshop at TwispWorks Pavilion, and Peace Song Sing-Along
Sunday, Sept. 20
• 10-11 a.m., Talk on Pledging Peace, William Stafford’s Pacifism and BioEarth’s Peace Pledge, at Methow Valley Community Center, with speakers Cindy Williams Gutiérrez and Liz Blackman
• 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Deep-dive Discussion of William Stafford’s Meditative Poetry at WellSpring (Methow Valley Community Center), with Teresa Williams
• 1:30-2:30 p.m., Meditation on Equanimity and Lovingkindness at WellSpring (Methow Valley Community Center, with Sharon Cohen
• 3-5 p.m., William Stafford Poetry Celebration at The Confluence: Art in Twisp, with keynote speaker Sheela McLean and other featured readers, plus musical guests Lynette Westendorf and Ken Bevis
