January 17, 1914

According to a Google blurb, the American poet William Stafford  (January 17, 1914 to August 28, 1993) was born in 'Hutchinson, Kansas, in 1914... [He] was one of our most prolific and celebrated poets. He was a witness for peace, and for honesty, recognizing in his writing that "justice will take us millions of intricate moves." Author of over fifty books, and recipient of the National Book Award for Traveling through the Dark, Stafford was a professor at Lewis and Clark College, and a traveling teacher throughout the world. As a conscientious objector during World War II, he began his unswerving habit of writing before dawn each day, and his habitual generosity to other writers and readers. After serving as consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1970, he was named Oregon's Poet Laureate in 1975. ...'

We especially like this stanza from "Our City is Guarded by Automatic Rockets." 

...

'There is a place behind our hill, so real

it makes me turn my head, no matter. There

in the last thicket lies the cornered cat

saved by its claws, now ready to spend ,

all that is left of the wilderness, embracing

its blood. And that is the way I will spit

life at the end of any trail where I smell any hunter.'

William Stafford was an appropriate choice for what became the post of Poet Laureate to the Library of Congress.