William Edgar Stafford (January 17, 1914 – August 28, 1993) was an American poet and pacifist. He received a BA and an MA from the University of Kansas and, in 1954, a PhD from the University of Iowa. He was appointed the twentieth Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1970. During WWII, he was jailed as a conscientious objector. The author of more than sixty-five volumes of poetry and prose, Stafford taught at Lewis and Clark College from 1948 until his retirement in 1979.