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Hapax
Recipient of the 2008 Poet’s Prize
Recipient of the 2008 Benjamin H. Danks Award
Hapax is ancient Greek for "once, once only, once and for all," and "onceness" pervades this second book of poems by American expatriate poet A. E. Stallings. Opening with the jolt of "Aftershocks," this book explores what does and does not survive its "gone moment"-childhood ("The Dollhouse"), ancient artifacts ("Implements from the Grave of the Poet"), a marriage's lost moments of happiness ("Lovejoy Street"). The poems also often compare the ancient world with the modern Greece where Stallings has lived for several years. Her musical lyrics cover a range of subjects from love and family to characters and themes derived from classical Greek sources ("Actaeon" and "Sisyphus").
Employing sonnets, couplets, blank verse, haiku, Sapphics, even a sequence of limericks, Stallings displays a seemingly effortless mastery of form. She makes these diverse forms seem new and relevant as modes for expressing intelligent thought as well as charged emotions and a sense of humor. The unique sensibility and linguistic freshness of her work has already marked her as an important, young poet coming into her own.
Recipient of the 2008 Benjamin H. Danks Award
Hapax is ancient Greek for "once, once only, once and for all," and "onceness" pervades this second book of poems by American expatriate poet A. E. Stallings. Opening with the jolt of "Aftershocks," this book explores what does and does not survive its "gone moment"-childhood ("The Dollhouse"), ancient artifacts ("Implements from the Grave of the Poet"), a marriage's lost moments of happiness ("Lovejoy Street"). The poems also often compare the ancient world with the modern Greece where Stallings has lived for several years. Her musical lyrics cover a range of subjects from love and family to characters and themes derived from classical Greek sources ("Actaeon" and "Sisyphus").
Employing sonnets, couplets, blank verse, haiku, Sapphics, even a sequence of limericks, Stallings displays a seemingly effortless mastery of form. She makes these diverse forms seem new and relevant as modes for expressing intelligent thought as well as charged emotions and a sense of humor. The unique sensibility and linguistic freshness of her work has already marked her as an important, young poet coming into her own.
- GenresPoetry
112 pages, Paperback
First published March 10, 2006
5 people are currently reading
210 people want to read
About the author
A.E. Stallings
30 books99 followersAlicia Elsbeth Stallings is an American poet and translator. She was named a 2011 MacArthur Fellow.
Stallings was born and raised in Decatur, Georgia and studied classics at the University of Georgia, and the University of Oxford. She is an editor with the Atlanta Review. In 1999, Stallings moved to Athens, Greece and has lived there ever since. She is the Poetry Program Director of the Athens Centre. She is married to John Psaropoulos, who is the editor of the Athens News.
Stallings' poetry uses traditional forms, and she has been associated with the New Formalism.
She is a frequent contributor of poems and essays to Poetry magazine. She has published three books of original verse, Archaic Smile (1999), Hapax (2006), and Olives (2012). In 2007 she published a verse translation of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura (The Nature of Things).
Stallings was born and raised in Decatur, Georgia and studied classics at the University of Georgia, and the University of Oxford. She is an editor with the Atlanta Review. In 1999, Stallings moved to Athens, Greece and has lived there ever since. She is the Poetry Program Director of the Athens Centre. She is married to John Psaropoulos, who is the editor of the Athens News.
Stallings' poetry uses traditional forms, and she has been associated with the New Formalism.
She is a frequent contributor of poems and essays to Poetry magazine. She has published three books of original verse, Archaic Smile (1999), Hapax (2006), and Olives (2012). In 2007 she published a verse translation of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura (The Nature of Things).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
July 5, 2021
But you will find no other lands, no other seas discover.
This city will pursue you. The same streets, you will follow.
You will grow old among the neighborhoods that you know now.
Among the same houses, you will turn grey. Forever
You are coming to this city. Do not expect another.
For you there is no ship. There is no road for you.
For as you've wrecked your life in this small corner, so too
You have wrecked your life the whole world over.
This city will pursue you. The same streets, you will follow.
You will grow old among the neighborhoods that you know now.
Among the same houses, you will turn grey. Forever
You are coming to this city. Do not expect another.
For you there is no ship. There is no road for you.
For as you've wrecked your life in this small corner, so too
You have wrecked your life the whole world over.
July 10, 2017
I would never normally read a collection as quickly as I read this, but Stallings' work is so enjoyable that I couldn't stop. She is one of my favourite poets: her use of form is so skillful and the way she allows form to lead her into new imagery and ideas is unbelievable. The beauty and wit of her poetry is what I am always looking for, and what I hardly ever find.
August 1, 2018
Perhaps it is a soft spot I have for Christian New Formalism or perhaps as a former expatriate who is also from Georgia I identify with Stallings or perhaps it is my love of the classical Hellenic philosophy and literature, but Stallings gets me with this book that I would often not relate to or like as much as I do. Stalling's use of high conceptual frameworks is mellowed by her concrete language and direct form: Stalling's poems are easy to read, easy to superficially understand on an initial reading, but are deceptive in that unfold if mediate on the tensions with the complexity of the concepts. Many readers will find the titles "pretentious" (a word often used when pompous or esoteric would be more technically correct) and her formalism and direct language "accessible." This is a trick though: Stallings is often building a ease with the reader in other to led the theological or philosophical problem she is trying to embody present itself in reflection. Stallings also has a wry sense of humor that relieves her work from the seriousness that sometimes infects other difficult new formalist poets such as Mark Jarman or Geoffrey Hill. Stallings does ask the reader to be willing to check allusions to both Christian and classical Greek references, but does not do so in an alienating way.
April 27, 2023
I love Stallings' wit. She is a wonderful formalist too. "Nettles," "The Charioteer," "Explaining an Affinity for Bats," "Dead Language Lesson," and "Jet Lag" were highlights for me.
As with "Like," her most recent volume of poems, many of the poems in "Hapax" are about ancient Greece or living as an expat in modern Greece. I find pretty much everything she has to say on the subject very moving, and her insights into ancient Greece are as laser-sharp and precise as the form of her poems. I think she is an excellent contemporary example of a poet who is truly keeping a tradition living. She is an excellent classicist without the narrow, specialist academic/antiquarian view of the ancients, and she's creating real, life-giving art through her engagement with a tradition.
As with "Like," her most recent volume of poems, many of the poems in "Hapax" are about ancient Greece or living as an expat in modern Greece. I find pretty much everything she has to say on the subject very moving, and her insights into ancient Greece are as laser-sharp and precise as the form of her poems. I think she is an excellent contemporary example of a poet who is truly keeping a tradition living. She is an excellent classicist without the narrow, specialist academic/antiquarian view of the ancients, and she's creating real, life-giving art through her engagement with a tradition.
November 8, 2020
This is A.E. Stallings’ second collection of poetry, and also the second book by her that I have read. She is mostly a joy to read, as she works in formal meter and rhyme, and is quite the heir to Richard Wilbur in her adept use of rhyme. In this collection, she tries different forms, include limerick, sonnet, and a hybrid type haiku. But the nice thing is she does not get hung up on forms for the sake of form; rather, she seems to have an innate sense of what structure works best for what she wishes to say. I also like the compression in her work. Words are used with care, a refreshing alternative to most poetry today.
January 14, 2020
Amazing poetry collection! Perfect for fans of mythology revisited, and "small" things written of in "grand" ways, if that makes sense.
June 14, 2015
Is there a new formalism? Not if you have been reading poetry before such nonsense came about. The problem with literary and artistic movements is that some people feel more educated mentioning them and the words used to describe such movements are often taken out of context. This nonsense aside, Stallings novella of poems, “Hapax,” is an enjoyable read for everybody. The only pretensions that it may have are its use of esoteric words in some of its poems. In the age of Google having such words in poems and using them correctly should not be a problem. Much of the whining and complaining about Hapax is from critics and those desiring to be critics. Many of the young people who attend poetry workshops and claim to learn their craft from spoken word performance have a lack of ingenuity when it comes to crafting words into an entertaining, informative, and lasting context. While they can make some people laugh in the moment or write complex enigmas that have no rhyme, they can do nothing to advance the craft of literature. Stallings has overcome such contemporary traps in audience pandering and written a fine collection of poems that uses all the techniques necessary for quality literature. While modern critics will wine about formality, Stallings uses it with her own finesse to create works that are new and fresh. Her negative critics seem to lump her work into strict formalities, revealing their glowing ignorance. For instance, “To Speke of Wo That Is in Mariage” is in sonnet form, but uses rhyming couplets in its quatrains. “Sisyphus” uses six stanzas like a sestina, but leaves off the ending envoy and rhymes some of its concluding lines rather than repeating the same words. “Bad News Blues” uses three rhyming lines rather than six short lines with alternating rhymes. Her use of punctuation and lack of direct repetition in her first two lines also complicates demarcation of any turn around. Stalling’s mastery of poetic enjambment throughout many poetic styles, forms if you like, is what sets her apart from other poets. For readers who can assimilate white space and punctuation without losing meter, her work flows smoothly and her rhymes offer melodic transitions, as opposed to the truly clunky work of any anti-rhyming establishment.
The poems in Hapax are easy enough for the literate masses of the U.S., but the every-day complexities of adult life may be a jump for young readers. Secondary or high school students should not have a problem reading Stalling’s work. Stalling’s gives people unfamiliar with poetry an excellent place to start and people familiar with poetry an interesting tapestry of literature to enjoy, contemplate, and pass on to new generations. For people that must criticize her familiarity with Greek history, keep in mind she is a scholar of classics and having an awareness of Western literature’s origins is a good thing.
The poems in Hapax are easy enough for the literate masses of the U.S., but the every-day complexities of adult life may be a jump for young readers. Secondary or high school students should not have a problem reading Stalling’s work. Stalling’s gives people unfamiliar with poetry an excellent place to start and people familiar with poetry an interesting tapestry of literature to enjoy, contemplate, and pass on to new generations. For people that must criticize her familiarity with Greek history, keep in mind she is a scholar of classics and having an awareness of Western literature’s origins is a good thing.
February 12, 2010
After reading many of her poems in various journals, I'd been looking forward to getting this book (though perhaps I should have gotten her first one first.... well, it'll be next). WOW. She's a genius in working in form and I love her wry sense of humor, and her subtlety. I have a tendency to dog-ear pages in poetry books that I like, so as to easily go back and re-read favorites for inspiration, but in this case, I'd have marked 80% of the pages. I'm a big fan, and I appreciate her love affair with rhyme and meter, something so few poets my age seem to bother trying to do these days, never mind master. I read this entire book in a sitting and will likely read it many, many times as I go back and savor these. In particular, if you are a fan of mythology and classics, you will love this. She inspires in me a particularly furious case of poet-envy.
February 22, 2008
One of the few contemporary poets whose books I can reread cover to cover. It doesn't mean I love every poem, but there are enough fully polished facets in the flawed ones, and more than enough flawless poems to make it worth the while of anyone who cares about formal poetry for our time. An admirable follow up to her first collection Archaic Smile
June 29, 2011
Rhyme is not dead. In fact, A.E Stallings rhymes are so smooth, and flawlessly structured that sometimes you don't even notice they're there. With a mixture of Greek Myth, the Underground and modern daily quirks, this collection is a must read. Wow. One of the best poets out there.
Favorite poems: Song for the Women Poets & Ultrasound.
Favorite poems: Song for the Women Poets & Ultrasound.
October 30, 2012
Damn, HAPAX is good. Stallings is funny and warm and insightful--without being condescending, pedantic, or trite. I had a lot of fun reading this book--rushing to the dictionary; checking allusions--all the while attempting to resist her claim that the book(?) "did not have to happen, won't illumine." Most of the time, though, I couldn't help but think she helps a little.
May 1, 2013
Kim Johnson initially recommended poetess AE Stallings to me, and this was my introduction to her poetry. I think she's one of the best poets alive right now. She perfectly blends simple, colloquially inspired new formalism with heavy and highly allusive topics, particularly because of her Classical background. With David Ferry and Richard Wilbur, she is one of the best living American poets.
Read
September 14, 2023Explaining an Affinity for Bats
...
That they sing—not the way a songbird sings
(Whose song is rote, to ornament, finesse)—
But travel by a sort of song that rings
True not in utterance, but harkenings,
Who find their way by calling into darkness
To hear their voice bounce off the shape of things.
Prelude
Lately, at the beginning of concerts when
The first-chair violin
Plays the A four-forty and the bows
Go whirring about the instruments like wings
Over unfingered strings,
The cycling fifths, spectral arpeggios,
As the oboe lights the pure torch of the note,
Something in my throat
Constricts and tears are startled to my eyes
Helplessly. And lately when I stand
Torn ticket in my hand
In the foyers of museums I surprise
You with a quaver in my rote reply—
Again I overbrim
And corners of the room go prismed, dim.
You're like to think that it is Truth and Art
That I am shaken by,
So that I must discharge a freighted heart;
But it is not when cellos shoulder the tune,
Not changing of the key
Nor resolution of disharmony
That makes me almost tremble, and it is not
The ambered afternoon
Slanting through motes of dust a painter caught
Four hundred years ago as someone stands
Opening the blank
Future like a letter in her hands.
It is not masterpieces of first rank,
Not something made
By once-warm fingers, nothing painted, played.
No, no. It is something else. It is something raw
That suddenly falls
Upon me at the start, like loss or awe—
The vertigo of possibility—
The pictures I don’t see,
The open strings, the perfect intervals.
...
That they sing—not the way a songbird sings
(Whose song is rote, to ornament, finesse)—
But travel by a sort of song that rings
True not in utterance, but harkenings,
Who find their way by calling into darkness
To hear their voice bounce off the shape of things.
Prelude
Lately, at the beginning of concerts when
The first-chair violin
Plays the A four-forty and the bows
Go whirring about the instruments like wings
Over unfingered strings,
The cycling fifths, spectral arpeggios,
As the oboe lights the pure torch of the note,
Something in my throat
Constricts and tears are startled to my eyes
Helplessly. And lately when I stand
Torn ticket in my hand
In the foyers of museums I surprise
You with a quaver in my rote reply—
Again I overbrim
And corners of the room go prismed, dim.
You're like to think that it is Truth and Art
That I am shaken by,
So that I must discharge a freighted heart;
But it is not when cellos shoulder the tune,
Not changing of the key
Nor resolution of disharmony
That makes me almost tremble, and it is not
The ambered afternoon
Slanting through motes of dust a painter caught
Four hundred years ago as someone stands
Opening the blank
Future like a letter in her hands.
It is not masterpieces of first rank,
Not something made
By once-warm fingers, nothing painted, played.
No, no. It is something else. It is something raw
That suddenly falls
Upon me at the start, like loss or awe—
The vertigo of possibility—
The pictures I don’t see,
The open strings, the perfect intervals.
December 3, 2016
I am not a poet, but my sister is a poet, and she lent me this book to read. Before reading the book I had the opportunity to hear A.E. Stallings read a select variety of her poems at Brigham Young University, and after observing her playful, lighthearted demeanor, I expected her book to be the same. I was surprised to find that her book has a more serious tone with many references to Greek culture throughout. This shouldn’t really have surprised me, seeing how she lives in Greece and poets generally tend to be serious. The Grecian-related references in many of her poems were, to be honest, a sort of stumbling block to me as I don’t know much about Greek culture and thus found it difficult to understand the context. Still, there were other poems scattered throughout that I connected with despite this stumbling block. A particular poem that I found interesting was “First Love: A Quiz,” where Stallings offers a variety of scenarios regarding first love, most of which are rather chilling. The title of the poem initially led me to think of giddy schoolgirls taking a quiz about their secret crushes in a magazine, but that is far from what the poem depicts instead sending a message about the danger of giving into mysterious seducers. This poem proves to me, among others, that A.E. Stallings is a master in catching her reader off-guard and giving them an experience they didn’t expect to have. While this book contains too many Greek concepts for me to understand, there are surprises to be found within that will make you ponder and deliberate.
April 21, 2018
A.E. Stallings is one of the greatest contemporary masters of formal poetry. Her creative range is enormous both in form and content, and informed by her American background, classical education and Greek domicile.
Here is the first verse of "First Love: A Quiz":
"He came up to me
a. in his souped-up Camaro
b. to talk to my skinny best friend
c. and bumped my glass of wine so I wore the ferrous stain on my sleeve
d. from the ground, in a lead chariot drawn by a team of stallions black as crude oil and breathing sulfur; at his heart, he sported a tiny golden arrow"
"Variations on an Old Standard" starts with:
"Come let us kiss. This cannot last -
Too late is on its way too soon -
And we are going nowhere fast."
and contains:
"Tomorrow has no alibi,
And hides its far side like the moon.
The bats inebriate the sky"
"Song for the Women Poets" ends with:
"And part of you leaves Tartarus,
And part stays there to dwell -
You who are both Orpheus
And She he left in Hell."
The ending of "Ultrasound":
"I am the room
The future owns,
The darkness where
It grows its bones."
Hapax is fusion poetry: old world and new, ancient and modern, poems of love and wit and memory and observation. A.E. Stallings is one of the best poets writing in English.
Here is the first verse of "First Love: A Quiz":
"He came up to me
a. in his souped-up Camaro
b. to talk to my skinny best friend
c. and bumped my glass of wine so I wore the ferrous stain on my sleeve
d. from the ground, in a lead chariot drawn by a team of stallions black as crude oil and breathing sulfur; at his heart, he sported a tiny golden arrow"
"Variations on an Old Standard" starts with:
"Come let us kiss. This cannot last -
Too late is on its way too soon -
And we are going nowhere fast."
and contains:
"Tomorrow has no alibi,
And hides its far side like the moon.
The bats inebriate the sky"
"Song for the Women Poets" ends with:
"And part of you leaves Tartarus,
And part stays there to dwell -
You who are both Orpheus
And She he left in Hell."
The ending of "Ultrasound":
"I am the room
The future owns,
The darkness where
It grows its bones."
Hapax is fusion poetry: old world and new, ancient and modern, poems of love and wit and memory and observation. A.E. Stallings is one of the best poets writing in English.
January 2, 2020
He placed his hand in the small of my back and I felt the tread of honeybees.
from "First Love: A Quiz"
Lots of highlights for me here, including some killer formal poems, like the pantoum "Another Lullaby for Insomniacs" and the hilarious limerick sequence "Klassikal Lymnaeryx." The other sequence in the book, "Exile: Picture Postcards" was likewise a delightful romp through the possibilities of the sonnet. My favorite poem was the final piece, "Ultrasound," which feels witchy and spell-like, with a tone more like the one she sometimes uses in her mythic pieces, something almost Blakean in the final stanza:
What butterfly--
Brain, soul, or both--
Unfurls here, pallid
As a moth?
(Listen, here's
Another ticker,
Counting under
Mine, and quicker.)
In this cave
What flickers fall,
Adumbrated
On the wall?--
Spine like beads
Strung on a wire,
Abacus
Of our desire,
Moon-face where
Two shadows rhyme,
Two moving hands
That tell the time.
I am the room
The future owns,
The darkness where
It grows its bones.
from "First Love: A Quiz"
Lots of highlights for me here, including some killer formal poems, like the pantoum "Another Lullaby for Insomniacs" and the hilarious limerick sequence "Klassikal Lymnaeryx." The other sequence in the book, "Exile: Picture Postcards" was likewise a delightful romp through the possibilities of the sonnet. My favorite poem was the final piece, "Ultrasound," which feels witchy and spell-like, with a tone more like the one she sometimes uses in her mythic pieces, something almost Blakean in the final stanza:
What butterfly--
Brain, soul, or both--
Unfurls here, pallid
As a moth?
(Listen, here's
Another ticker,
Counting under
Mine, and quicker.)
In this cave
What flickers fall,
Adumbrated
On the wall?--
Spine like beads
Strung on a wire,
Abacus
Of our desire,
Moon-face where
Two shadows rhyme,
Two moving hands
That tell the time.
I am the room
The future owns,
The darkness where
It grows its bones.
February 16, 2023
This is the second collection of poetry that I read from A.E. Stallings. While I didn't enjoy it quite as much as Like, the first collection of hers that I read, I still found the collection to be enjoyable. I still like how she weaves Greek mythology into a number of her poems, but I just didn't have quite as many poems that struck me as with the one I read previously.
Maybe with a reread in the future this will change, but for now I would say that this collection of poetry is good, just not as good as at least one of her other collections. It's definitely still worth your time to read, but for me personally it just didn't have the same level of impact. Granted, with poetry being what it is, my experience may not be yours.
Maybe with a reread in the future this will change, but for now I would say that this collection of poetry is good, just not as good as at least one of her other collections. It's definitely still worth your time to read, but for me personally it just didn't have the same level of impact. Granted, with poetry being what it is, my experience may not be yours.
March 13, 2018
I really enjoyed this poetry collection. I know Milton said rhyme is "no necessary adjunct or true ornament of poem or good verse", but Milton and I do not agree on everything, and also, Milton was a pompous asshole.
Stallings loves to rhyme, and most of her poems follow a simple rhyming pattern which fits perfectly into the mouth. These poems were quaint and cozy, yet subtly complex. There were a couple of cheap rhymes that made the meter awkward, but most of them were pleasant and maintained a sense of honest simplicity.
My favorites were "Aftershocks", "Explaining an Affinity for Bats", and "Song for the Women Poets". Be sure to check this one out for a quick, enjoyable read.
Stallings loves to rhyme, and most of her poems follow a simple rhyming pattern which fits perfectly into the mouth. These poems were quaint and cozy, yet subtly complex. There were a couple of cheap rhymes that made the meter awkward, but most of them were pleasant and maintained a sense of honest simplicity.
My favorites were "Aftershocks", "Explaining an Affinity for Bats", and "Song for the Women Poets". Be sure to check this one out for a quick, enjoyable read.
August 29, 2022
I like the early poems in this collection. I found myself dotting(marking)a number of individual lines. But the marking declined as the collection went along. I particularly dislike section 4.
The poems improve in section 5. I especially liked XXI Klassikal Lynmnaeryx.
She is unusual for a contemporary poet. She uses rhyme. But it is not rigid. It is not some standard scheme: like ABC ABC or ABDABCABD. The rhyme is random sometimes but knowing that it’ll be there makes you rush to it.
Will read more of her work.
The poems improve in section 5. I especially liked XXI Klassikal Lynmnaeryx.
She is unusual for a contemporary poet. She uses rhyme. But it is not rigid. It is not some standard scheme: like ABC ABC or ABDABCABD. The rhyme is random sometimes but knowing that it’ll be there makes you rush to it.
Will read more of her work.
April 27, 2020
Such impactful writing here. Some of my favorite moments:
We fall mute, as when two lovers come to the brink of the apology, and halt.
Your absence, father, is nothing.
The glass does not break because it is glass.
Even the days of the week have fled for the islands.
His smile swings open like a pocketknife.
The telephone is threatening suicide.
We fall mute, as when two lovers come to the brink of the apology, and halt.
Your absence, father, is nothing.
The glass does not break because it is glass.
Even the days of the week have fled for the islands.
His smile swings open like a pocketknife.
The telephone is threatening suicide.
May 17, 2020
“If we made something happen every day,/Or night, it was the game we knew to play,/Not realizing then how lives accrue,/With interest, the smallest things we do” (The Dollhouse, 7).
August 15, 2020
“I think you were a poet of perfection
Who fled still weighing one word with another,
Since wax forgives and warms beneath revision.”
Who fled still weighing one word with another,
Since wax forgives and warms beneath revision.”
November 26, 2020
There is not a did in this collection. Page after page, the poems remind the reader of their humanity and our common experiences. Beautiful. A book to return to again and again.
Read
May 3, 2022Favorites: "Cassandra," "XII Klassikal Lymnaeryx," and "Sisyphus"
read-in-part
March 21, 2024I want to read more Stallings.
December 16, 2024
Although I prefer a later collection of hers ("Like"), one can never go wrong reading A. E. Stallings.
October 27, 2025
man I love when authors weave in physics and astronomy 😩
June 24, 2024
I didn't love this collection the way I expected. Full disclosure, I read this in one sitting on the flight home from Cancun, so maybe I didn't give it a fair chance to grow on me, but I was trying to meet my Goodreads goal for the year, so needs must. 🤷
Many years ago, a friend shared "First Love: A Quiz" and I was really taken with its quirky menace, and I still appreciate its form and sad, inevitable tone. However, the rest of the poems didn't hit as hard and seemed to prioritize meter and rhyme over meaning and language. Yes, many (most?) of the other poems also heavily draw from Greek mythology, but that's a dime a dozen these days.
Occasionally a line or stanza would stand out to me, but the poems as a whole just never achieved a memorable effect. I found some of the ideas cute: the dog in the afterlife ("An Ancient Dog Grave, Unearthed During Construction of the Athens Metro"), the childhood references revised ("Alice, Grown-up, at the Cocktail Party), the cyclical form of "Another Lullaby for Insomniacs," and the wordplay in "Variations on an Old Standard." Here are a few snippets I thought were worth re-reading.
[bees] Whizzing by in zigs and zags,
Weighed down by the dusty gold
They've hoarded in their saddlebags,
All the summer they can hold.
--
Tomorrow has no alibi,
And hides its far side like the moon.
The bats inebriate the sky
---
And in its face, the shadow cast,
The Sea they call Tranquility--
Dry and desolate and vast,
Where all passions flow at last.
Come let us kiss. It's after noon,
And we are going nowhere fast.
Many years ago, a friend shared "First Love: A Quiz" and I was really taken with its quirky menace, and I still appreciate its form and sad, inevitable tone. However, the rest of the poems didn't hit as hard and seemed to prioritize meter and rhyme over meaning and language. Yes, many (most?) of the other poems also heavily draw from Greek mythology, but that's a dime a dozen these days.
Occasionally a line or stanza would stand out to me, but the poems as a whole just never achieved a memorable effect. I found some of the ideas cute: the dog in the afterlife ("An Ancient Dog Grave, Unearthed During Construction of the Athens Metro"), the childhood references revised ("Alice, Grown-up, at the Cocktail Party), the cyclical form of "Another Lullaby for Insomniacs," and the wordplay in "Variations on an Old Standard." Here are a few snippets I thought were worth re-reading.
[bees] Whizzing by in zigs and zags,
Weighed down by the dusty gold
They've hoarded in their saddlebags,
All the summer they can hold.
--
Tomorrow has no alibi,
And hides its far side like the moon.
The bats inebriate the sky
---
And in its face, the shadow cast,
The Sea they call Tranquility--
Dry and desolate and vast,
Where all passions flow at last.
Come let us kiss. It's after noon,
And we are going nowhere fast.
April 14, 2010
Stallings has a distinctive voice among contemporary poets: she's not afraid of traditional forms, and she's funny, clever, and usually not hokey when she uses them. Particularly memorable here are "Fragment" (a beautiful blank verse piece about breaking glass), "Sisyphus" (a virtuosic sestina--and I usually find this form annoying), and "The Song Rehearsal" (a richly structured poem about a Degas painting). Stallings does, unfortunately, sometimes have the tendency to let her formal play get the better of her; the first few poems in the book seem too obvious or sing-songy with their rhymes, which makes the poems seem clunky despite their mordant content and technical fluency.
October 27, 2008
Stallings is a very good poet, but her stuff isn't exactly for me. She's not a favorite of mine. Her poems have a lot to do with classic mythology and can get pretentious and unapproachable, and she has a habit of making everything rhyme, which bugs me as a reader and as a poet. She does have a few excellent pieces in the book that I earmarked, though, because she does know what she is doing and cares a lot about her stuff. Just not one of my favorites, overall.
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