Alicia Stallings
 

Alicia Stallings interviewed at Lightbox

Clive Watkins

Thanks for telling us about this, Clive.

It's a lovely interview of a lovely lady and brilliant poet.

(I sorted out the link for you; hope you didn't mind my interference!)

Jayne

Many thanks, Jayne! - Clive

Thanks for posting this. I especially like the recommendations for 5 books to use.

Maryann Corbett and I had the good fortune to hear Ms. Stallings read at St. Olaf's College last Monday night. The poems she selected focused on motherhood, children, and journeys to the underworld. The highlight for me was "Lost and Found," which rolled on in wave after wave of ottava rima. It starts at p. 23 of this archived file of the Beloit Poetry Journal: Here
St. Olaf's College is located in a town called Northfield.

Bill,

I've interfered again, sorry! As with Clive's original post, I've tidied up the link. It's very easy to do, actually, though it's not as easy to explain - so I just poke my nose in and do it ;)

Jayne

That is a truly amazing poem--inspiring, really. Thanks for the link.

Golly, that is one of the finest poems I've ever read, ever.

Has anybody been able to access the poem recently? I used the link earlier today, and it worked fine, but I had no time to read the poem. Now I'm going back, and the link won't work. Furthermore, I can link to the Beloit Poetry Journal through the net, and to the archive by issue or poet - but when I try to open a specific poem - any poem, by any poet - nothing happens. Anybody else have this problem? Has our galaxy of Alicia-freaks overloaded their system?

By the way, their archives are astonishing. I had no idea of the volume and qualify of work they publish, of it I did I forgot. I submitted once - back in 2009 - was promptly rejected (two weeks!) and never tried again. My loss.

Michael,

I've just read it here so try this link.

The poem is astounding! I've just read the interview too. Alicia is an inspiration to us all.

Jayne

Alicia has always been wise, but with this poem she has attained wisdom.

Unbelievably beautiful.

Wow! Just wow!

Sorted out my problem and fixed it, Jayne. And thanks, Bill, for the link. At the risk of sounding like Donald Trump - the poem is great!

Alicia's Divine Comedy--fabulous!

Susan

Standing up to join in the applause.

Nine visions for the nine Muses. She hooks you from the beginning and keeps you focused through 288 lines.

Thanks, Bill, for alerting us to this treasure!

I'm trying to stop myself here, but I can't.

This is a rather, if not very, dull interview. It's hardly Alicia's fault, though she could have rattled the cage of someone asking these questions form central casting about technique and Greek, throwing the ball back in the interviewer's court. I have heard her answer some of these questions before, more than once. And it's not like I follow her career any more closely than the next guy does.

Yes, she says what we formalists want to hear. But we shouldn't demand to be told what we want to hearr. And we should expect a much more lively exchange with a poet of Alicia's caliber.

If I am not mistaken, the exact same questions are asked of Erica Dawson in the same issue.

It seems to me that Alicia shows colossal patience in this situation.

Selah,
R. Mullin.

The poem is wonderful. As I was reading through it, I was transported back to the days when my children were growing up and it was difficult, if not impossible, for me to find the time to write the poems that were begging to be written. Brava, Alicia!

Yes, the poem is tremendous.

I agree with Rick about the interview. But it can be strangely difficult to break out of these limited and limiting frameworks, as I know from experiencing, having been involved in such an “interview” last year and once before several years ago. About the poem I am less enthusiastic than some of you, though Alicia is undoubtedly a very fine and intelligent poet.

Clive

Well, I noticed after throwing my little fit that the web journal exists to provide resources to educators. But this makes me kind of sad--that form has to treated as something on the side, not to be afraid of, etc.

In painting, the revival of representational pictures is better established. Nobody thinks it brave or quaint to make a picture that is not entirely abstract now, even though it was a rare college art curriculum that allowed anything other than abstraction and conceptual art in the 1970s. The tradition, which never died, of course, came back in full force. There were no New Representational painters, though there were heroes, such as David Park and the Bay Area Figurative movement that formed around him in the late 50s.

I like how Alicia has described how writing in form brings forth something that wouldn't likely emerge without the constraint... the glorious paradox. But other than that, I think we should avoid discussing technical aspects of form and look askew at anyone who would ask quaint questions. Otherwise we risk cementing the obscurity of the grand tradition in poetry in this dark age.

Reading “Lost and Found” alongside “The Barnacle,” Alicia’s new poem in Poetry, is a wonderful reminder of how much this poet brings to the party. The longer poem is rich with bright threads of playfulness woven into a more somber-hued fabric of erudition and emotional profundity. And the short one is an example of light verse that combines serious heft with its jokey, frisky fun. (Alicia’s classical learning and intellectual firepower have never dimmed the twinkle in her eye. She was the Light featured poet some years back, and more recently wrote an insightful essay of appreciation for Julie Kane’s feature.)

As for the interview, I particularly love her answer to the question about “your allegiance to traditional or received forms.” She replies, “I wouldn’t say I had an ‘allegiance’ to form, rather a knack for it.” That’s not only wicked smaht, as they say in Boston, it also strikes me as delightfully subversive. In some precincts of our small world, formal poets adopt the attitude that writing in rhyme and meter amounts to professing a creed or waging a crusade, not playing an enjoyable game that we happen to be good at. So her answer does the opposite of telling formalists what they want to hear. The interviewer’s questions may be pat and uninspired -- poet interviews, like post-game athlete interviews, have their conventions and cliches -- but I sure don’t see any liveliness deficit on Alicia’s side of the exchange.

I included "Lost and Found" in a course I did on American narrative poetry (20th and 21st century) last year and the students loved it. (The other poets included were Frost, Bishop, Hecht, Merrill and David Mason.) As most of the students were Italian, they were fascinated to see ottava rima coming to life in 21st-century poetry in English.

Well, Alicia told you what you wanted to hear, Chris!~,:^)

I alluded to the more interesting point she has made about form elsewhere: That it frees us from the cerebral constraints that confine us when we run on an open field. It pulls something from us that we might not have gotten to.

That's not all it does. But it's hardly "playing an enjoyable game that we happen to be good at". Or, I should say, that when it is such a game, it shows.

I would just find it refreshing to read or hear her discussing something else entirely. Something that interests her.

Rick

Great answers to, as Rick says, boring questions which are questions only and not conversation starters. This is less surprising when one looks at the masthead.

…A big problem with this interview and others like it is that the questions were apparently (...well, they were no doubt, actually...) e-mailed to Erica and Alicia, and the two of them sent back written responses. This is deadly for the obvious reason that an interviewee’s response cannot direct the next question. This practice of interviewing via e-mail is an insidious trend in journalism. I’m a business journalist and very frequently public relations people, or my sources themselves, ask for a convenient list of questions for them to answer in writing. I refuse to give them a list (they are often shocked that I reject their suggestion, the e-mail exchange seeming to them so efficient and convenient!). Usually I have my way and there is an old fashioned “live” interview. And during the really good ones, I throw my prepared questions away. I find out only during the interview what I really need to be asking. This is, of course, from Journalism 101, a course that is no longer taught.


A great example of where questions are sent out and answers typed in is the “By the Book” feature in the New York Times Book Review in which, this week, Nathan Lane tells us what’s on his night stand. I like reading what certain folk have to say in this feature, but it would be better if there were a real discussion.