Vocation by William Stafford - Poem for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year C

The Englewood Review of Books curates a weekly series of classic and contemporary poems that resonate with the themes of the lectionary readings. Here is one of the poems for this coming Sunday (More poems for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year C can be found here)

This poem was selected to accompany one of the
lectionary readings for the coming week,  1 Timothy 6:6-19

Vocation

William Stafford


This dream the world is having about itself

includes a trace on the plains of the Oregon Trail,

[ READ THE FULL POEM ]

William Stafford (1914 – 1993) was an American poet and pacifist. Stafford was 48 years old when his first major collection of poetry was published, Traveling Through the Dark, which won the 1963 National Book Award for Poetry. He was appointed the twentieth Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1970. Stafford had a quiet daily ritual of writing, focused on the ordinary. His poems were typically short, noticing the earthy, accessible details specific to a particular locality (via Wikipedia).

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Gratitude in Exile: Seeking the Welfare of the City

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Faces of Faith