As the Sky Begins to Change

Featured in the Shelf Unbound list of 2024 Indie Summer Reads

"Kim Stafford is a priest and poet, a songwriter and philosopher. Each of these meticulously crafted poems offers the ability to see our interconnected world with a tender, resilient heart that only grows stronger over time. You will come to the book like that lucky raccoon who finds a plum tree in one of the early poems, feasting until you are 'bandit happy, lusty gusto, shaky elbow, roly-poly / on your side helpless with joy."
—James Crews, author of Kindness Will Save the World

"It only takes a few leaves to fall into this retreat. These poems remind me I don't spend enough time outdoors, alone ... I have not lived slow enough ... I haven't eaten enough plums. I have failed to see beauty and brilliant complexity everywhere. They remind me that those who suffer from war and oppression need poems, and that every childhood moment that shaped us is a poem eye-to-eye with earth."
—Frank X Walker, author of Masked Man, Black

"This inspiring new collection speaks to this moment of dilemma and decision: What was our / certainty is all in ruins, so we sing glory, glory, glory.' Poems here bring music to the book's 'little anthems of thought to advance the vast change of heart demanded of us all. 'From the ordinary,' Stafford says, 'you must rise into helpful dreaming.' In this book, Stafford dreams and sings the world new, reader by reader."
—Thomas R. Smith, author of Storm Island and Medicine Year

Poet Q&A: Kim Stafford finds poetic fodder in nature, war, boyhood, and writing in new book, ‘As the Sky Begins to Change’ Oregon Artswatch