[Julie Steiner]

N., I am confident that if you look at A.E. Stallings's "Jet Lag" and "Jigsaw Puzzle" less hastily, you will find that both those poems are making arguments very similar to the views you have expressed above in prose. They do so in a very oblique, playful, poetic way, by curating a mood and an experience rather than by making an explicit statement. There is far more going on in their depths than can be judged on the surface level of subject matter.

The first poem is so chock-full of Greek mythology that I am gobsmacked to hear it accused of too much modernity. I hope you can be persuaded to regard the poem as evidence that the antiquity of which you are so fond is still relevant, vibrant, and life-enriching in modern times. I'm frankly stunned that you are dismissing a poem that seems to resonate so well with your own more extremely-stated sensibilities.

The second poem can taken as a meditation on humanity's constant struggles to make sense of life's chaos by employing various strategies. Seeking the structural outlines of the puzzle (corners and edges) might suggest religion, or it might evoke using the stanzas, lines, and metrical requirements of formal poetry-writing. Grouping pieces by color could evoke the racial stereotypes that many resort to in order to quickly categorize perceived threats, or it could suggest a poets' attention to rhymes and patterns. Stallings leaves it up to the reader to connect those dots in whichever way they wish. I love what she does with the line lengths and meter over the course of the poem, to help underscore the experience of disconcerting absences and things falling apart. I find that exhilarating. Again, I can't believe you're dismissing this poem on the grounds of modernity, or that you apparently think that this deceptively simple poem would have been improved by giving it more flourishes or by making the language sound as if it was written a few centuries ago.

To me, neither poem is "about" its subject matter. To me, both are "about" inviting the reader to briefly experience life itself from a new perspective. I am genuinely sad that you seem to be declining these invitations from an arbitrary determination not to enjoy "modernity." I fervently hope you will give these two poems another chance.