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After Arguing against the Contention That Art Must Come from Discontent

By William E. Stafford 1914–1993

Whispering to each handhold, “I'll be back,”

I go up the cliff in the dark. One place

I loosen a rock and listen a long time

till it hits, faint in the gulf, but the rush

of the torrent almost drowns it out, and the wind—

I almost forgot the wind: it tears at your side

or it waits and then buffets; you sag outward. . . .

I remember they said it would be hard. I scramble

by luck into a little pocket out of

the wind and begin to beat on the stones

with my scratched numb hands, rocking back and forth

in silent laughter there in the dark—

“Made it again!” Oh how I love this climb!

—the whispering to stones, the drag, the weight

as your muscles crack and ease on, working

right. They are back there, discontent,

waiting to be driven forth. I pound

on the earth, riding the earth past the stars:

“Made it again! Made it again!”

William Stafford, “After Arguing Against the Contention That Art Must Come from Discontent” from The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 1998 by William Stafford. Reprinted with the permission of Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org.

Source: The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems (Graywolf Press, 1998)

Biography

"If you have been wondering where the articulate, readable poems have gone in the last third of the 20th century, you might start with [William] Stafford," declares Victor Howes of the Christian Science Monitor. A pacifist and one of "the quiet of the land," as he often describes himself, Stafford is known for his unique method of composition, his soft-spoken voice, and his independence from social and literary expectations. As

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