Reviews for Writing the Australian Crawl

The average rating for Writing the Australian Crawl based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-08-29 00:00:00 Angie Myers I first read Writing the Australian Crawl in the mid-80s when I was working on an MFA degree. William Stafford, a native Kansan, has a deceptively easy-going approach to writing poetry. His first rule is that one must write. In his case, he writes every morning before anyone in his house awakes. Stafford, a conscientious objector during WWII and a Quaker, has a peaceful demeanor that comes across in his poetry. I had the privilege to meet him when he came to the Butler Community College creative writing workshop several times to speak to students and look at their poetry. Since he grew up in El Dorado, it was a sort of homecoming for him. One thing that struck me when I read the book this time was that, when an interviewer asked him who was the most important influence on his writing, he answered, "My mother." He said hers was the voice he heard when he wrote, and made the point that most people are more influenced by the voices they heard when they were children than by any other voice. These are the voices that are engrained in our consciousness from day one and the language that we carry within us. Stafford, who died a few years ago, had a moral purpose in his life, but he never seemed to take himself too seriously. This is the tone that comes through the book. Any time I get stuck when I'm writing something, I return to this book as a way to get my bearings. It may not work for everyone, but it works for me.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-02-23 00:00:00 Ida Howard Wish I'd read this in my MFA program. Probably would've been able to relax about it all. Of course, I wasn't writing poetry at the time (at least, I didn't THINK I was writing poetry!)