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Like: Poems
A Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in PoetryA stunning new collection by the award-winning young poet and translatorLike, that currency of social media, is a little word with infinite potential; it can be nearly any part of speech. Without it, there is no simile, that engine of the lyric poem, the lyre’s note in the epic. A poem can hardly exist otherwise. In this new collection, her most ambitious to date, A. E. Stallings continues her archeology of the domestic, her odyssey through myth and motherhood in received and invented forms, from sonnets to syllabics. Stallings also eschews the poetry volume’s conventional sections for the arbitrary order of the alphabet. Contemporary Athens itself, a place never dull during the economic and migration crises of recent years, shakes off the dust of history and emerges as a vibrant character. Known for her wry and musical lyric poems, Stallings here explores her themes in greater depth, including the bravura performance Lost and Found, a meditation in ottava rima on a parent’s sublunary dance with daily-ness and time, set in the moon’s Valley of Lost Things.
141 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 25, 2018
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499 people want to read
About the author
A.E. Stallings
30 books96 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 67 reviews
December 6, 2018
I loved about half of the poems in this book so much - subtle lyrics, a lot of them playing on the word "like" in contemporary culture. Then there were the other half, which mostly have to do with Greek culture and ancient Greek art. Your mileage may vary here, but for me they felt sterile.
Very glad I read the book, though.
Very glad I read the book, though.
February 19, 2024
this was an amazing amazing amazing set of poems. I would (personally) like to thank comprehensive exams for being such an amazing place (to introduce us to a poem by A.E. Stallings).
I would buy this collection for "Lost and Found" alone because oh wow wow wow I can't stop thinking about so many of these lines: "XII. 'Look there,' she said, and gestured to the keys, / 'These are the halls to which we can't return-- / The rooms where we once sat on others' knees, / Grandparents' houses, loving, spare, and stern.. / As we shut each door, / It locks: we cannot enter anymore'" (this whole poem (36 sections in all) is so completely unreal and so utterly spell-binding. The landscape of the moon, the landscape of lost things.)
"After a Greek Proverb" - "We stash bones in the closet when we don't have time to bury / Stuff receipts, in envelopes, fire papers in a stack" (language of grief — all the things that remain)
"Cyprian Variations" - "B. To remember is to cross / Through no-man's-land / Into an imaginary country / You do not recognize / But where the streets are real, the walls / Are stone, you gaze through other eyes" (reminds me of Derek Mahon's "Afterlives": And I step ashore in a fine rain / To a city so changed / By five years of war / I scarcely recognize / The places I grew up in, / The faces that try to explain")
"K. The mother says to her daughter: / The heart is an island. / To reach it, / You must cross salt water. / This is what the daughter fears: / That joy, like sorrow, / Must be reached by shipwreck, / Tossed on the flotsam of tears"
I would buy this collection for "Lost and Found" alone because oh wow wow wow I can't stop thinking about so many of these lines: "XII. 'Look there,' she said, and gestured to the keys, / 'These are the halls to which we can't return-- / The rooms where we once sat on others' knees, / Grandparents' houses, loving, spare, and stern.. / As we shut each door, / It locks: we cannot enter anymore'" (this whole poem (36 sections in all) is so completely unreal and so utterly spell-binding. The landscape of the moon, the landscape of lost things.)
"After a Greek Proverb" - "We stash bones in the closet when we don't have time to bury / Stuff receipts, in envelopes, fire papers in a stack" (language of grief — all the things that remain)
"Cyprian Variations" - "B. To remember is to cross / Through no-man's-land / Into an imaginary country / You do not recognize / But where the streets are real, the walls / Are stone, you gaze through other eyes" (reminds me of Derek Mahon's "Afterlives": And I step ashore in a fine rain / To a city so changed / By five years of war / I scarcely recognize / The places I grew up in, / The faces that try to explain")
"K. The mother says to her daughter: / The heart is an island. / To reach it, / You must cross salt water. / This is what the daughter fears: / That joy, like sorrow, / Must be reached by shipwreck, / Tossed on the flotsam of tears"
June 3, 2019
I enjoyed this immensely. I don't read much poetry like this anymore, that of form and pattern and rhyme, and I think for that reason I found reading Stallings's lyrics on nature and the everyday reflecting our world as well as the classical relaxing, even comforting.
September 19, 2021
3/5
Pulitzer Prize Nominee
She wrote her poems in formal verse. Which is to say, rhyme, but it feels natural. Like subtle music when you read them. I admire how she approaches to nature and grace, the issues of everyday life, urban landscapes, friendships--all the quotidian matters of life.
I’m glad that the dark
Above us is not deeply twinned
Beneath us, and moiled with wind….
I’m glad that our six-year-old daughter,
Who can’t swim, is a foot off the floor
In the bottom bunk, and our son
With his broken arm’s high and dry,
That the ceiling is not a seeping sky….
Pulitzer Prize Nominee
She wrote her poems in formal verse. Which is to say, rhyme, but it feels natural. Like subtle music when you read them. I admire how she approaches to nature and grace, the issues of everyday life, urban landscapes, friendships--all the quotidian matters of life.
I’m glad that the dark
Above us is not deeply twinned
Beneath us, and moiled with wind….
I’m glad that our six-year-old daughter,
Who can’t swim, is a foot off the floor
In the bottom bunk, and our son
With his broken arm’s high and dry,
That the ceiling is not a seeping sky….
September 10, 2023
Perhaps one of the greatest living poets, Stallings is skilled in rhyme and meter. Her work is thick-woven with classical allusions, but most of subjects are wonderfully ordinary— glitter, scissors, a sea urchin, a pull toy— and considered with language that banters and surprises, imbuing the "everyday" with a mythical significance. Who knew a kitchen sieve could move one so?
September 28, 2018
This seems to me to be A.E. Stalling’s most “experimental” book of poems to date. Within the pages of this expansive book, you will still find plenty of poems in the received forms of the sonnet, villanelle, sestina, etc. And as usual, she manages these poetic forms with delicate precision and musical grace. Her continuing obsession with Greek mythology also is wonderfully present. And domestic themes recur as they have in her previous collections. But now, many of the poems are also responding pointedly to the economic and refugee crises that has rocked her adopted home of Greece in the last few years. And the results are moving and instructive. Take this excerpt from one of her “Aegean Epigrams”:
Fathomless
A fathom deep, the body lies, beyond all helps and harms,
Unfathomable, unfathomable, the news repeats, like charms,
Forgetting that “to fathom” is to hold within your arms.
Stallings also stretches out the rhymes in other poems to the point that they become unconscious echoes in places, as in the poem “Memorial (Mnemosyno)” where the last word of the poem, “yeast”, rhymes with the word “priest” a full 6 lines above it in the previous stanza. So she plays with and stretches her previous work a bit in this book, both in terms of form and subject matter, and while at times the result is a tad uneven (as in the long poem “Lost and Found”, which still has its charms) this is still a very strong book of poems from one of our strongest living poets.
Fathomless
A fathom deep, the body lies, beyond all helps and harms,
Unfathomable, unfathomable, the news repeats, like charms,
Forgetting that “to fathom” is to hold within your arms.
Stallings also stretches out the rhymes in other poems to the point that they become unconscious echoes in places, as in the poem “Memorial (Mnemosyno)” where the last word of the poem, “yeast”, rhymes with the word “priest” a full 6 lines above it in the previous stanza. So she plays with and stretches her previous work a bit in this book, both in terms of form and subject matter, and while at times the result is a tad uneven (as in the long poem “Lost and Found”, which still has its charms) this is still a very strong book of poems from one of our strongest living poets.
April 11, 2020
Giving star ratings always feels a bit absurd to me, but particularly when it comes to poetry. This collection is ground-breaking, moving, and flawlessly crafted: many of these poems feel completely timeless, and honestly if Stallings had just written Sea-Urchins or Refugee Fugue and filled the rest of this with blank pages, I'd still go home happy. So if I'm giving every poem here five stars, then I think Stallings gets approximately five hundred stars for the whole collection. I'm so impressed with her work, and so glad that it exists, that it makes it hard to talk about!
Stallings is the only contemporary poet I know who really grapples with form. Some poets may toy with form for a poem or two, or even create a whole collection in a particular form, but no-one is as good at form as Stallings, and no-one creates vibrant and genuinely fresh work using exclusively formal writing. By giving herself over to form completely, Stallings becomes a master at it, and makes her poetry look effortless. But it also feels timeless: each word is carefully balanced, and the wittiest and deftest poem is also the most insightful. Stallings' poems seems to skim over the brink of language, capturing the most elusive and profound moments of life.
This collection is organised alphabetically, another way in which language is handed over to an external constraint, but it flows naturally. The subjects range from motherhood, contemporary childhood, modern Athens, to humanitarian crises, the current state of the Aegean, and are infused with myth and classical references, giving the poems a depth and sense of contemplation. In this collection, Stallings experiments with longer poems than in her previous work: Lost and Found carries the reader through 36 verses, and travels from a contemporary home to a dream world where all the lost things come to reside. Refugee Fugue is told in four parts, and captures images from the refugee crisis. I've read a number of contemporary poems on this subject, and usually I'm disappointed by them: they often feel patronising, or don't capture the human cost of the situation. Stallings creates space for grief and loss, and her subtle language doesn't let us forget that we are all culpable for the cruelties inflicted on humans by other humans.
These poems are also often a lot of fun: Pull Toy, which imagines a child's toy looking for a new home, is very witty, and Lice captures the exasperation of the mother dealing with head-lice. Her imagery, coupled with use of alliteration, makes the poem Sea Urchins compelling to read aloud, as well as giving is a sense of movement. It can be found online at the Nation.
Stallings' work is widely published online and in poetry archives. It's easy to read and often works well for people who don't read a lot of poetry. But reading one of her collections as a whole is a different experience, and gives the reader room to see the scope of Stallings' writing. Her work is not to be missed.
Stallings is the only contemporary poet I know who really grapples with form. Some poets may toy with form for a poem or two, or even create a whole collection in a particular form, but no-one is as good at form as Stallings, and no-one creates vibrant and genuinely fresh work using exclusively formal writing. By giving herself over to form completely, Stallings becomes a master at it, and makes her poetry look effortless. But it also feels timeless: each word is carefully balanced, and the wittiest and deftest poem is also the most insightful. Stallings' poems seems to skim over the brink of language, capturing the most elusive and profound moments of life.
This collection is organised alphabetically, another way in which language is handed over to an external constraint, but it flows naturally. The subjects range from motherhood, contemporary childhood, modern Athens, to humanitarian crises, the current state of the Aegean, and are infused with myth and classical references, giving the poems a depth and sense of contemplation. In this collection, Stallings experiments with longer poems than in her previous work: Lost and Found carries the reader through 36 verses, and travels from a contemporary home to a dream world where all the lost things come to reside. Refugee Fugue is told in four parts, and captures images from the refugee crisis. I've read a number of contemporary poems on this subject, and usually I'm disappointed by them: they often feel patronising, or don't capture the human cost of the situation. Stallings creates space for grief and loss, and her subtle language doesn't let us forget that we are all culpable for the cruelties inflicted on humans by other humans.
These poems are also often a lot of fun: Pull Toy, which imagines a child's toy looking for a new home, is very witty, and Lice captures the exasperation of the mother dealing with head-lice. Her imagery, coupled with use of alliteration, makes the poem Sea Urchins compelling to read aloud, as well as giving is a sense of movement. It can be found online at the Nation.
Stallings' work is widely published online and in poetry archives. It's easy to read and often works well for people who don't read a lot of poetry. But reading one of her collections as a whole is a different experience, and gives the reader room to see the scope of Stallings' writing. Her work is not to be missed.
June 20, 2020
A 3-star collection raised to 4 stars on the strength of a few really striking poems. "Lost and Found" starts out as a simple, though charming search for missing toys in the crannies of the poet's home, but becomes a profound dream vision of all kinds of lost intangible things. "Empathy" is a meditation on the limits of that connection, ending in the haunting stanza
Empathy isn't generous,
It's selfish. It's not being nice
To say I would pay any price
Not to be those who'd die to be us.
"After a Greek Proverb" and "Autumn Pruning" (available here, with "Empathy": http://towerjournal.com/fall_2017/poe...) offer austere moral lessons--"Nothing is more permanent than the temporary" and (in another bone-sharp closing stanza)
You water them and feed them
And call yourself a gardener.
You coddle and you pardon:
Be harder and hardener.
That last line feels like a misprint--surely it should be "Be harder and be hardener"?
At any rate, there are far too many poems in this collection that don't measure up, like packing peanuts around the poetic gifts Stallings is really sending us. But those gifts are certainly worth seeking out--"Lost and Found" above all.
Empathy isn't generous,
It's selfish. It's not being nice
To say I would pay any price
Not to be those who'd die to be us.
"After a Greek Proverb" and "Autumn Pruning" (available here, with "Empathy": http://towerjournal.com/fall_2017/poe...) offer austere moral lessons--"Nothing is more permanent than the temporary" and (in another bone-sharp closing stanza)
You water them and feed them
And call yourself a gardener.
You coddle and you pardon:
Be harder and hardener.
That last line feels like a misprint--surely it should be "Be harder and be hardener"?
At any rate, there are far too many poems in this collection that don't measure up, like packing peanuts around the poetic gifts Stallings is really sending us. But those gifts are certainly worth seeking out--"Lost and Found" above all.
November 1, 2018
Since the passing of the American poet Richard Wilbur, there are fewer poets today working in traditional poetic forms -- or, poets that are actually adept in the forms. A.E. Stallings is one exception whom I know of; her poems are graceful, thoughtful, wry, and precise.
If you enjoy meter and rhyme, and wish to read a poet who does not date from when Shelley was writing his lyrics, then I believe A.E. Stallings is one to try. There is a sense of the present day-to-day (even the title evokes social media) coupled to old, mostly unused poetic forms.
Worth a read, in my opinion.
If you enjoy meter and rhyme, and wish to read a poet who does not date from when Shelley was writing his lyrics, then I believe A.E. Stallings is one to try. There is a sense of the present day-to-day (even the title evokes social media) coupled to old, mostly unused poetic forms.
Worth a read, in my opinion.
September 9, 2024
Scissors
Are singular, and plural, un-
Canny: one plus one is one;
Even in solitude, a pair,
Cheek to cheek, or on a tear,
Knives at cross-purposes, bereaving
Cleavers to each other cleaving:
Open, shut; give and take,
All dichotomy in their wake.
What starts with sighs, concludes in “or”s:
His or hers; mine or yours:
Divvy up. Slice clean, slice deep,
In pinked jags, or one swift sweep,
The crisp sheet where they met and married,
The paper where the blades are buried.
notes: wonderful, splendid language. see:
Now from its centuries-dark archway pour,
And back again there dive,
A host of stings: the sweetness-hoarding
Wild black bees. They hive
Here in the hollow in the rocks
Upon which leans the bridge,
And gather gold dust for their queen
Out over hills pockmarked with looted tombs,
Across aeons that span from ridge to ridge.
or:
Woolgathering afternoon:
All I’ve accomplished, all,
Is to untangle a wine-dark skein
And coil it into a ball.
I did not knit a swatch
For gauge—or cast a stitch—
Or pick a plausible pattern out,
I just unworked one hitch
After another, and went
Brailling along the maze,
Over, under, twist and turn,
To where the ending frays.
denouement, indeed — how fine that is.
September 5, 2022
This is her 2018 poetry collection. It is very uneven. The early poems are interesting and clever but after page 34 they get colder, crasser. The poem entitled “Like” is not about similarity but about light approval and how we use that word nowadays. Yawn. Nevertheless, it is kind of clever but being a word with a hard sound I wonder if it works at all.
The poems are arranged in alphabetical order. It makes it convenient to find a specific poem again.
I liked “Eheu” but not “Empath“ as so many reviewers do here. I did also like “Lost and Found.”
I liked the poem “The Mycenaean Bridge.“
“Refugee Fugue” is rubbish. The author should stay away from politics.
The last half dozen poems made it hard to finish.
The poems are arranged in alphabetical order. It makes it convenient to find a specific poem again.
I liked “Eheu” but not “Empath“ as so many reviewers do here. I did also like “Lost and Found.”
I liked the poem “The Mycenaean Bridge.“
“Refugee Fugue” is rubbish. The author should stay away from politics.
The last half dozen poems made it hard to finish.
September 24, 2024
As far as contemporary poetry goes for me, this was a pretty thoughtful collection, and the fact that I cared enough to finish it and leave a review says a lot. Although I think most of it lacks a sense of universal feeling, and it leans pretty heavily on Greek mythology, there were some interesting poems notable to me:
- Cyprian variations
- The Ertswhile archivist
- Momentary
AE Stallings is able to write clearly and express layers of thinking without obscuring it. I respect her for having carved her work against the grain of contemporary poetry.
- Cyprian variations
- The Ertswhile archivist
- Momentary
AE Stallings is able to write clearly and express layers of thinking without obscuring it. I respect her for having carved her work against the grain of contemporary poetry.
January 7, 2019
SO great. My favorite is probably 'Refugee Fugue', but the book is a treasure chest. I'll re-read it for the next month or two.
June 10, 2023
De très beaux vers par moments, mais aussi beaucoup de poèmes de remplissage. Les poèmes manquaient parfois de cohésion
July 26, 2024
excellent examples of effective, modern use of simple rhyme schemes
September 5, 2019
2.5 really
October 22, 2018
This is the most stunning book of poetry I have read in a long time.
April 6, 2019
If I could give it six stars, I would.
February 17, 2019
I am a poet and instructor of poetry writing (and Greek mythology), but don't appreciate a lot of contemporary poetry, which often seems to be obscure or empty wordplay. However there are half a dozen poets, among them Stephen Dunn and A.E. Stallings, who shine above the rest.
I originally checked out this Stallings collection from the library and began to note the poems I wanted to copy down or use in class. Very quickly, I realized that I was noting more than 75% of her poems - and that this is a book I have to own. So I ordered it.
As a lover of and instructor of Greek mythology, I've always appreciated Stallings' poems with mythological themes, and quite a few are included in this book. But so many of her other poems (both rhymed and unrhymed) are exceptional as well.
Stalling demonstrates the crafts of precise word choice, lyricism and clarity - three qualities lacking in much of contemporary poetry. Not many contemporary poets write in rhyme these days, but Stallings often does in a manner that is not too overt, and which demonstrates impressive skills. Lost and Found, the longest poem in this book, with over 30 stanzas, is rhymed, and impressed me so much that I couldn't even bear to read it all - my level of awe was off the scale.
Stallings gave a poetry reading only a few miles from where I live this past week, and because of a serious car accident and injury, I was unable to attend. That was a real disappointment. But her words on the page bring her to life, and demonstrate extraordinary poetic skill.
This is one of the best - if not the best - poetry collection by a contemporary poet of the 21st century. I couldn't recommend it more highly.
I originally checked out this Stallings collection from the library and began to note the poems I wanted to copy down or use in class. Very quickly, I realized that I was noting more than 75% of her poems - and that this is a book I have to own. So I ordered it.
As a lover of and instructor of Greek mythology, I've always appreciated Stallings' poems with mythological themes, and quite a few are included in this book. But so many of her other poems (both rhymed and unrhymed) are exceptional as well.
Stalling demonstrates the crafts of precise word choice, lyricism and clarity - three qualities lacking in much of contemporary poetry. Not many contemporary poets write in rhyme these days, but Stallings often does in a manner that is not too overt, and which demonstrates impressive skills. Lost and Found, the longest poem in this book, with over 30 stanzas, is rhymed, and impressed me so much that I couldn't even bear to read it all - my level of awe was off the scale.
Stallings gave a poetry reading only a few miles from where I live this past week, and because of a serious car accident and injury, I was unable to attend. That was a real disappointment. But her words on the page bring her to life, and demonstrate extraordinary poetic skill.
This is one of the best - if not the best - poetry collection by a contemporary poet of the 21st century. I couldn't recommend it more highly.
November 7, 2022
I'll be honest I don't know a lot about poetry. Discussions on form or style are ones I can't really engage in to any sophisticated degree. I have however been wanting to know more about it and expose myself to different poets and types of poetry to see what I enjoy. This led me to pick up Like by A.E. Stallings. In part because I had found it recommended somewhere and also because of the influence of Greek mythology and culture on the poetry, and I've always really enjoyed Greek mythology.
That said I found myself really enjoying this collection of poetry. Some are deep and profound, others are just about simple aspects of daily life, while others are infused with themes or images from Greek culture and myth. It was just a really enjoyable collection to read and I will definitely be checking out some other collections by Stallings. As with any collection of poems, there were some that I liked less than others, but the majority were enjoyable to read and there weren't any that I really disliked. You may also want to be prepared to look up a few words, because Stallings tosses out some pretty big words in some of her poems that I wound up having to look up.
I feel that the problem with something like poetry, even more than other books, is that your enjoyment is really going to be dependent on your experience and perspective on life. For example, there is a poem called Glitter that I would imagine most people would shrug about and say it's just filler or padding for the collection. However, having a daughter that embodies this poem gave it a much more significant impact for me. So I can only truly say that I enjoyed this book of poetry and would recommend it highly even knowing that these poems may not resonate with others as they did with me.
That said I found myself really enjoying this collection of poetry. Some are deep and profound, others are just about simple aspects of daily life, while others are infused with themes or images from Greek culture and myth. It was just a really enjoyable collection to read and I will definitely be checking out some other collections by Stallings. As with any collection of poems, there were some that I liked less than others, but the majority were enjoyable to read and there weren't any that I really disliked. You may also want to be prepared to look up a few words, because Stallings tosses out some pretty big words in some of her poems that I wound up having to look up.
I feel that the problem with something like poetry, even more than other books, is that your enjoyment is really going to be dependent on your experience and perspective on life. For example, there is a poem called Glitter that I would imagine most people would shrug about and say it's just filler or padding for the collection. However, having a daughter that embodies this poem gave it a much more significant impact for me. So I can only truly say that I enjoyed this book of poetry and would recommend it highly even knowing that these poems may not resonate with others as they did with me.
October 18, 2023
A 2019 Pulitzer Prize finalist, A. E. Stallings explores Greek mythology, refugees, families, and classical poetry in Like. This fifty-seven-poem collection is organized alphabetically provides a wonderful demonstration of Stallings’s talents in both short, long-form, and found poetry. A highlight of Stallings’s collection is the language in “After a Greek Proverb.” The exquisite final lines: “But nothing is more permanent than the temporary / we’re here for the time being, I answer to the query.” The notion of time and space is present in her work; where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going. Greek culture is explored through the references to mythological creatures and applied to modern Greece. “Empathy” looks directly at Syrian refugees crossing into Greece: “I’m glad we didn’t wake / our kids in the thin hours, to take / not a thing, not a favorite toy, /… / Any mark, that demarcates a shore / as the dinghy starts taking on water.” That narrative is explored further in “Refugee Fugue” where Icarus and Charon mix with Aegean Epigrams useful phrases in Arabic, Farsi/Dari, and Greek (a found poem) demonstrating the role of a volunteer. Parenthood is viewed humorously in “For Atalanta” dedicated to her daughter and “Glitter:” “you have a daughter now. It’s everywhere,” speak to all parents of young children with nods to ancient Greek battles fought and won. Stallings demonstrates in “Lost and Found” a full exploration of figurative language through the thirty-six labeled parts exploring a parable of opposites.
February 19, 2025
For the Egyptians mummified their dead cats, that they might prowl the afterlife, stalking mice forever
For the mice were in the afterlife too, even without getting mummified, crawling through some wormhole in the wainscoting to get at the golden grain left for the Pharaohs.
For the cats had their own cat goddess, and were already monotheistic.
For cats did not believe in the dog-headed god of Death, if you consider a jackal a dog, which I do.
For the cats had little need of an afterlife, in truth, what with their nine regular ones.
For when they were mummified, it was in strips of papyrus, Egyptian newspaper.
For on this were sometimes the scraps of poems, the news that stays news
For cats know how to scan, and make no false quantities.
For cats are poetry, whereas dogs are prose.
For Moses could issue no commandments to the cats themselves, for cats only contemplate suggestions.
For a dog moves his tail to say Yes, but the cat moves her tail to say No.
For the cats told Moses to divide the Red Sea, for they had a repugnance of getting their paws damp
For the dry sands of Egypt proved an excellent litter box, and preserver of papyrus
For in some theories, cats carry the parasites of insanity
For the mummies of cats are wrapped in ancient laundry lists and the lost fragments of Sappho.
-- "Psalm Beginning with Two Lines of Smart's Jubilate Agno"
For the mice were in the afterlife too, even without getting mummified, crawling through some wormhole in the wainscoting to get at the golden grain left for the Pharaohs.
For the cats had their own cat goddess, and were already monotheistic.
For cats did not believe in the dog-headed god of Death, if you consider a jackal a dog, which I do.
For the cats had little need of an afterlife, in truth, what with their nine regular ones.
For when they were mummified, it was in strips of papyrus, Egyptian newspaper.
For on this were sometimes the scraps of poems, the news that stays news
For cats know how to scan, and make no false quantities.
For cats are poetry, whereas dogs are prose.
For Moses could issue no commandments to the cats themselves, for cats only contemplate suggestions.
For a dog moves his tail to say Yes, but the cat moves her tail to say No.
For the cats told Moses to divide the Red Sea, for they had a repugnance of getting their paws damp
For the dry sands of Egypt proved an excellent litter box, and preserver of papyrus
For in some theories, cats carry the parasites of insanity
For the mummies of cats are wrapped in ancient laundry lists and the lost fragments of Sappho.
-- "Psalm Beginning with Two Lines of Smart's Jubilate Agno"
March 28, 2021
Kinda whipped through this one, and it deserves many many rereads. Keeping it for my bookshelf. I would have bought it just for “Lost and Found,” which was one of the most imaginative, engaging long poems I’ve read in awhile. Apart from that, a ton of really sexy words and rhymes: A quibble of pipistrelles?? Appalled with pollen?? I’m in LOVE.
The only poems I didn’t quite get were the ones referencing classics. Lots of Ovid stuff that kind of went over my head. But it didn’t really turn me off like most academic old stuff does. It actually made me want to study it so I can see what she means and understand the relevance to today. Because the rest of her poems are all so vibrant and immediately real- I know these poems referencing classics are equally real, I just don’t have the clues to unlock them and relate to them.
When I read poetry books I always tag the poems I like best. I was tagging probably 50-60% of these poems. But if I had to pick three must-reads (apart from Lost and Found, which was the obvious crown jewel of the collection IMO), it would be: Refugee Fugue, Scissors, and Summer Birthdays.
The only poems I didn’t quite get were the ones referencing classics. Lots of Ovid stuff that kind of went over my head. But it didn’t really turn me off like most academic old stuff does. It actually made me want to study it so I can see what she means and understand the relevance to today. Because the rest of her poems are all so vibrant and immediately real- I know these poems referencing classics are equally real, I just don’t have the clues to unlock them and relate to them.
When I read poetry books I always tag the poems I like best. I was tagging probably 50-60% of these poems. But if I had to pick three must-reads (apart from Lost and Found, which was the obvious crown jewel of the collection IMO), it would be: Refugee Fugue, Scissors, and Summer Birthdays.
April 5, 2024
AE Stallings is more than merely good, even if she hasn't yet broken through the glass ceiling to great.
She's deft with irony and muted grief and the best modern poet I know when it comes to form and sound. She's still a little trapped by her forms sometimes, but this book features variations (I particularly like "Aegean Blues") that make it clear she has an excellent ear for meter.
Poetry books don't have to have themes, and forcing one is silly, but the ongoing interest in ancient Greece gave it a welcome coherence, and, if you're familiar with the references, gives the poetry a certain resonance.
And if you were in doubt of her skills of poetic observations, "Swallows" should put that to rest, at least if you're a birder. (To be less cryptic – swallows really do act like that! It's as charming as "A Bird Came Down the Walk -".)
"But these were just the revenants/The brittle shades of love"
She's deft with irony and muted grief and the best modern poet I know when it comes to form and sound. She's still a little trapped by her forms sometimes, but this book features variations (I particularly like "Aegean Blues") that make it clear she has an excellent ear for meter.
Poetry books don't have to have themes, and forcing one is silly, but the ongoing interest in ancient Greece gave it a welcome coherence, and, if you're familiar with the references, gives the poetry a certain resonance.
And if you were in doubt of her skills of poetic observations, "Swallows" should put that to rest, at least if you're a birder. (To be less cryptic – swallows really do act like that! It's as charming as "A Bird Came Down the Walk -".)
"But these were just the revenants/The brittle shades of love"
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September 26, 2020I am so uncertain about poetry that I feel ridiculous putting any stars at all. That said, I was absolutely intrigued by Stallings use of form and the way she moved from domestic topics to Greek mythology and back. I found myself giggling (YES!) at poems like "Lice" then reading and rereading headier, harder poems. "Refugee Fugue" was beautiful and intense - and "Empathy" addressed the subject again in a way that felt like she was in my bedroom with me; "Like, the Sestina" was clever - and there were more that made me feel all different ways. Is that 4 stars? 5? What do I rate poetry that feels simultaneously like "I could actually write like this" and "this is subtle and amazing beyond what I can take in"? The best I can say is that I would like to reread a lot of these poems. That's no stars and all the stars - there you go.
November 1, 2022
This was a pleasant and varied collection. I'm generally not a fan of what I call "nonsensical stream of conscience" writing, where words are thrown in for the sake of a rhyme or some assonance. And I feared there would be some of that here; however, even in the poems with some of that, it made sense when you looked at it for a moment. And I appreciate how it made me think without feeling like the poetry was too esoteric or too elitist where a PhD only scratches the surface of the meaning. No, this was a pleasant and lyrical poetry collection. A delight with enough of the ancient Greco-Roman references I live for without feeling like I missed something in translation. Overall, a beautiful collection I will likely revisit in the future. And the accompanying audiobook read by the author was sublime as well.
March 4, 2023
A. E. Stallings has a remarkable ability to take modern life (all of its ups and downs and in-betweens) and transfer them into forms. It’s a rare thing to see it done so well, and reading the poems in here were a joy.
From striking couplets like:
Knives at cross-purposes, bereaving
Cleavers to each other cleaving
To the scattered rhyme throughout stanzas like:
The dream
Gets up from its bed,
Arches its back, and stretches all its toes, very neat.
It crosses without passports
On padded feet
And curls up in another head
In another street.
It’s just fun to see. I personally think we would all be a little better off if form poetry made a comeback – but if it does, it’ll be because poetry like this paved the way.
From striking couplets like:
Knives at cross-purposes, bereaving
Cleavers to each other cleaving
To the scattered rhyme throughout stanzas like:
The dream
Gets up from its bed,
Arches its back, and stretches all its toes, very neat.
It crosses without passports
On padded feet
And curls up in another head
In another street.
It’s just fun to see. I personally think we would all be a little better off if form poetry made a comeback – but if it does, it’ll be because poetry like this paved the way.
May 13, 2019
Stallings poems are ancient and contemporary at the same time. She reaches back into the Classical world in order to write relevant, updated, precise poems. Her familiarity with Greek and Latin add layers to her poems. Her poems are political, earthy, mythic, skyward, and as blue as the Aegean Sea.
The language in her poems is elegant for its precision and use of rare but appropriate words. She never shies away from rhyming and meter and scansion.
I have found my own true poet. If only I could write my poems to match her elegance! It is a goal to which I can aspire.
The language in her poems is elegant for its precision and use of rare but appropriate words. She never shies away from rhyming and meter and scansion.
I have found my own true poet. If only I could write my poems to match her elegance! It is a goal to which I can aspire.
August 14, 2023
First of all, I have not had to look up so many words in so short a time in a while. Humbling. I definitely don't get all of the allusions, which I can live with. The titular poem is the least inspired.
Stallings is smart and educated; the poems are clever. But, to me, sometimes too clever, which makes them feel more like an exercise and less a poem. Still, quite a few really good poems (in a "this resonates" way) and, on a technical level, all of these are well done.
A four for technique but a three for me, personally.
Stallings is smart and educated; the poems are clever. But, to me, sometimes too clever, which makes them feel more like an exercise and less a poem. Still, quite a few really good poems (in a "this resonates" way) and, on a technical level, all of these are well done.
A four for technique but a three for me, personally.
February 4, 2019
The brilliant title poem is a sestina in which every line ends with the word "like" and does not belabor the word, but finds many variations of its meaning. MoManyst of the poems are influenced by Greek literature, and make me feel a bit dim for not knowing the references to specific chapters of Homer and Ovid, but the poems I enjoy the most define the essence of something like "Silence" and "Pencil." Stallings can strip things down even as she is building them up using glorious language.
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