I know for sure that "Maybe alone on my Bike," was published in *Smoke's Way* in 1984, and may have been published in another collection before that. So yes, before his passing. I too am a tremendous fan, and for those who want to know more about Bill Staffords life, I can't recommend highly enough his book *Down I My Heart* about his years working in logging camps as a consciencious objector during WWII. Also his collection of writings *Every War Has Two Losers*. I had the great good fortune to meet Bill once when he and his son Kim came to talk to us at a gathering of Oregon English teachers at the coast. He was gracious and funny and a wonderful storyteller. He remains a towering literary figure here in Oregon, and his students and disciples continue to honor his memory. Interestingly, I had a conversation with his son Kim - head of Creative Writing at Lewis and Clark University - several years after his father's passing about this poem and bicycle poems in general. He mentioned that one of his father's best known poems, "Fifteen," http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2009%2F08%2F27 was, according to a story his father told him, originally inspired by finding a bicyle crashed on the side of a country road, but he felt the poem was more effective with the transformation to a motorcycle. Interesting to read it in that light though. Bill's daughter Kit, the main character of this well-known poem: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/with-kit-age-7-at-the-beach/ lives in the mountain town of Sister's Oregon, is a poet and artist, and very active in bringing arts education to students. For those who are interested in this sort of thing, I maintain a long-neglected blog devoted to bicycle poetry and art called Velotry where you can find the Stafford poem,and where I just added a couple by Billy Collins. It's here: http://velotry.blogspot.com/
Mike On Monday, July 6, 2015 at 10:48:34 AM UTC-7, Dave Redmon wrote: > > I listen, and the mountain lakes > hear snowflakes come on those winter wings > only the owls are awake to see, > their radar gaze and furred ears > alert. In that stillness a meaning shakes; > And I have thought (maybe alone > on my bike, quaintly on a cold > evening pedaling home), Think!- > the splendor of our life, its current unknown > as those mountains, the scene no one sees. > O citizens of our great amnesty: > we might have died. We live. Marvels > coast by, great veers and swoops of air > so bright the lamps waver in tears, > and I hear in the chain a chuckle I like to hear. > > > "Maybe Alone On My Bike" by William Stafford from The Way It Is. © > Graywolf Press, 1999. Reprinted with permission. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
