Publisher's description: Born the year World War I began, acclaimed poet William Stafford (1914-1993) spent World War II in a camp for conscientious objectors. Throughout a century of conflict he remained convinced that war simply doesn't work. By his writings, Stafford showed that it is possible, and crucial, to think independently when fanatics act, and to speak for reconciliation when nations take sides. He believed it to be a failure of imagination to see only two options: to fight or to run away. This book gathers the evidence of a lifetime's commitment to nonviolence, including an account of Stafford's near hanging at the hands of American patriots. In excerpts from his daily journal from 1951 to 1993, Stafford uses questions, alternative views of history, lyric invitations, and direct assessments of our political habits to suggest a way other than war. Many of these statements are published here for the first time, together with a generous selection of Stafford's pacifist poems and interviews from elusive sources.