William Stafford (1914–1993) was a poet and a writer with an extraordinary ability to absorb and reflect on the world around him and on human nature. His ability to listen—to the sounds of the natural world, to spoken words, and to the interplay of silence and noise—was surpassed only by his ability to communicate his thoughts. Stafford said that he greeted his ideas with the words, "Come in, come in!" He seemed to feel the same way about his readers. His poems and stories are ones with which many people feel they can really connect. His books, including Down in My Heart, Even in Quiet Places, and Learning to Live in the World: Earth Poems, have received many awards, including the National Book Award and the Award in Literature of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.