7 Must-Read A. E. Stallings Poems

A.E. Stallings is a contemporary poet, born and raised in Decatur, Georgia. She studied classics at Oxford University and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2011. Stallings is known for using traditional forms in her poetry as well as making good use of classical allusions. She has so far published four volumes of poetry. Her most recent, Like, published in 2018, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her work is often compared to that of Richard Wilbur and Edna St. Vincent Millay.

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Olives

‘Olives’ is the title poem of A.E. Stallings’ third book of poetry by the same name. It explores the features of the fruit and its resemblance to her poems.

A.E. Stallings, known for combining classical forms with modern ideas, presents ‘Olives’ as a thoughtful piece about taste and poetry. She compares her poems to olives—bittersweet and complex, needing time to be fully appreciated. This poem reflects her unique style and her approach to poetry, which might seem tough or unusual at first but reveals a satisfying depth. While not her most famous, it captures her layered, thoughtful writing.

Sometimes a craving comes for salt, not sweet,

(...)

Clinging tightly to the pit—on spears

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Actaeon

‘Actaeon’ by A. E. Stallings is based on the captivating mythological story of Actaeon and is told from the perspective of a speaker who taunts the main character for how he lost his life.

The hounds, you know them all by name.

You fostered them from purblind whelps

At their dam’s teats, and you have come

To know the music of their yelps:

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Apotropaic

‘Apotropaic’ by A. E. Stallings is a clever poem that personifies Evil and depicts how easy it is for “him” to take on various guises, such as that of someone old and meek.

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Epic Simile

‘Epic Smilie’ by A.E. Stallings uses a simile of an epic hero longing for a hero’s death to depict how as one seeks out happiness it may become more allusive and harder to enjoy than it was to begin with.

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First Love: A Quiz

‘First Love: A Quiz,’ a poem written by the American poet A.E. Stallings is in the form of a quiz. This poem is a retelling of the mythical story of Hades and Persephone in a modernized version.

He came up to me:
a. in his souped-up Camaro
b. to talk to my skinny best friend

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Sine Qua Non

‘Sine Qua Non’ by A.E. Stallings is a thoughtful depiction of what “absence” and “nothing” feel like. The poem is specifically concerned with one speaker’s father.

Your absence, father, is nothing. It is nought —

The factor by which nothing will multiply,

The gap of a dropped stitch, the needle's eye

Weeping its black thread. It is the spot

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The Tantrum

‘The Tantrum’ by A.E. Stallings is an compelling poem about loss. The speaker describes what a specific listener did when they saw their mother’s newly cut hair.

Struck with grief you were, though only four,

The day your mother cut her mermaid hair

And stood, a stranger, smiling at the door.

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7 Must-Read A. E. Stallings Poems

Olives

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