William Stafford (1914-1993) was one of the best-loved poets in the United States, and he is the father of poet and essayist Kim Stafford. His poem, Traveling through the Dark, received a 1962 National Book Award, and is anthologized internationally. He was appointed the twentieth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1970. He was a frequent contributor to magazines and anthologies and eventually published 57 volumes of poetry. James Dickey called Stafford one of those poets "who pour out rivers of ink, all on good poems." He kept a daily journal for 50 years, and composed nearly 22,000 poems, of which roughly 3,000 were published.