William Stafford Teaching

In response to the current article in the Lewis & Clark Chronicle ("William Stafford Returns to Lewis & Clark"), William Sack writes a reminiscence of Stafford as a teacher, ending in a pleasantly rueful poet's comment: 

In 1954 I was a sophomore pre-med student. I took William Stafford's course, Intro. To English Literature because it was required to have some English. Little did I know how lucky I was! That course has stayed with me over the past fifty- five years. When Dr. Stafford read a poem, one was transported into another world. I've never heard anyone read a poem the way he could. (At the time  I didn't know he was a famous poet himself.) Anyway one day, after reading a sonnet of Shakespeare's, he sighed and said, "After Shakespeare everything else seems a bit shabby." 

Bill Sack, '56