At the time of his death in 1993 William Stafford was one of America's most influential and best loved poets. Constant throughout his work was a gift for transforming the familiar into the unique and a deceptively simple voice that resonated with depth rather than bravura.

Few poets in our time pursued their art with such persistent and unfailing creativity and HOLDING ON TO THE GRASS shows Stafford, at nearly eighty, still writing at the height of his powers. This is the first collection of Stafford's work to be published outside America.

'The whole world of Stafford's poems is beautiful, intriguing, complex, as mysterious and miraculous as osmosis.' William Heyen

'William Stafford was a master.' Robert Bly

William Stafford was born in Hutchinson, Kansas, in 1914. He spent four years during World War II interned in labour camps as a conscientious objector. Later he became a college teacher, living for many years in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and four children.