He was drafted into the United States armed forces in 1941 while pursuing his master's degree at the University of Kansas, but declared himself a pacifist.

His master's thesis, the prose memoir Down In My Heart, was published in 1948 and described his experience in the forest service camps.

He taught English for one academic semester (1947) to 11th graders (juniors) at Chaffey Union High School, Ontario, California.

Paul Merchant, writing in the Oregon Encyclopedia, compared his gentle quotidian style to Robert Frost.

Merchant states, "his poems are accessible, sometimes deceptively so, with a conversational manner that is close to everyday speech.

Among predecessors whom he most admired are William Wordsworth, Thomas Hardy, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson.

Despite his late start, he was a frequent contributor to magazines and anthologies and eventually published fifty-seven volumes of poetry.

James Dickey called Stafford one of those poets "who pour out rivers of ink, all on good poems.

[10] In 1980, he retired from Lewis & Clark College but continued to travel extensively and give public readings of his poetry.