Traveling through the Dark

“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost (1922)

A poem frequently compared to William Stafford’s, “Stopping by Woods” also features a sensitive speaker who pauses far from civilization to contemplate death and nature. Both speakers move in the end to shake off their contemplative hiatuses to return to their human worlds.

“The Poet in Nature” by Walt Whitman (1874)

A poet Stafford much admired, Whitman here offers his most radiant and expansive vision of nature’s power and his faith that humanity is fused to that power. Because we are part of nature, we get to participate in nature’s glorious resistance to endings—an optimism that informs Stafford’s vision.

“Spirit of Place: Great Blue Heron” by William Stafford (1968)

The gentle pessimism of “Traveling Through the Dark” can be contrasted with this sweeping celebration of the majestic blue heron. Stafford assures us that through believing in nature and never forgetting our place within—rather than apart from—the wild, humanity can skirt the edge of doom.

“William Stafford’s ‘Travelling Through the Dark’: An Analysis” by A. J. Black (1964)

Among the earliest and most impactful readings of Stafford’s poem, Black’s analysis was the first to suggest something darker behind Stafford’s apparently simple narrative, something “profound lying beneath the poem’s easy, conversational tone.