Hapax

Cloth Text – $49.95
ISBN 978-0-8101-5170-3Trade Paper – $14.95
ISBN 978-0-8101-5171-0Contributors
Publication Date
March 2006
Categories
Page Count
112 pages
Trim Size
6-1/8 x 8-1/2
ISBN
0-8101-5170-7
Hapax
Poems
Recipient of the 2008 Poet’s Prize
Recipient of the 2008 Benjamin H. Danks Award
Hapax is ancient Greek for "once, once only, once and for all," and "onceness" pervades this second book of poems by American expatriate poet A. E. Stallings. Opening with the jolt of "Aftershocks," this book explores what does and does not survive its "gone moment"-childhood ("The Dollhouse"), ancient artifacts ("Implements from the Grave of the Poet"), a marriage's lost moments of happiness ("Lovejoy Street"). The poems also often compare the ancient world with the modern Greece where Stallings has lived for several years. Her musical lyrics cover a range of subjects from love and family to characters and themes derived from classical Greek sources ("Actaeon" and "Sisyphus").
Recipient of the 2008 Benjamin H. Danks Award
Hapax is ancient Greek for "once, once only, once and for all," and "onceness" pervades this second book of poems by American expatriate poet A. E. Stallings. Opening with the jolt of "Aftershocks," this book explores what does and does not survive its "gone moment"-childhood ("The Dollhouse"), ancient artifacts ("Implements from the Grave of the Poet"), a marriage's lost moments of happiness ("Lovejoy Street"). The poems also often compare the ancient world with the modern Greece where Stallings has lived for several years. Her musical lyrics cover a range of subjects from love and family to characters and themes derived from classical Greek sources ("Actaeon" and "Sisyphus").
Employing sonnets, couplets, blank verse, haiku, Sapphics, even a sequence of limericks, Stallings displays a seemingly effortless mastery of form. She makes these diverse forms seem new and relevant as modes for expressing intelligent thought as well as charged emotions and a sense of humor. The unique sensibility and linguistic freshness of her work has already marked her as an important, young poet coming into her own.
Reviews
"[O]ne of the strongest talents to emerge in recent years." --Poetry
"Stallings demonstrates formidable confidence in her technical skill, exploring fixed forms, tinking with traditions, and creating her own combinations of meter and rhyme. She also takes chances." --Harvard Review
"This is a startling first book of poems, charged with so much energy that it practically kicks the reader in the teeth. Readers who expect poetry to give them a refreshing jolt will by regaled . . . It is a pleasure to hail the arrival of A. E. Stallings." --X. J. Kennedy, The Classical Outlook