Olives

Finalist, 2012 NBCC Award in the Poetry category
Recipient, 2011 MacArthur Fellowship and Guggenheim Fellowship

A. E. Stallings has established herself as one of the best American poets of her generation. In addition to a lively dialogue with both the contemporary and ancient culture of her adopted homeland, Greece, this new collection features poems that, in her inimitable voice, address the joys and anxieties of marriage and motherhood. This collection builds on previous accomplishments with some longer poems and sequences of greater philosophical scope, such as “On Visiting a Borrowed Country House in Arcadia.” Stallings possesses the rare ability to craft precise poems that pulsate with deeply felt emotion. Like the olives of the title, the book embraces the bitter but savory fruits of the ancient tree, and the tears and sweetness we harvest in our temporary lives. These poems show Stallings in complete command of her talent, able to suggest the world in a word.

A. E. Stallings has published two books of poetry, Archaic Smile (1999), which won the Richard Wilbur Award, and Hapax (Northwestern University Press, 2006), which won the Poet’s Prize and the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Benjamin H. Danks Award. She has also published a verse translation of Lucretius, The Nature of Things (2007). Stallings is a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow and a 2011 MacArthur Fellow. She lives in Athens, Greece.