FEATURE
December 2006

A.E. Stallings


THE CORTLAND REVIEW

E
SSAY
Tony Barnstone
  "A Manifesto on the Contemporary Sonnet: A Personal Aesthetics"
Tony Barnstone considers the sonnet from its formal beginnings to its evolution into the twenty-first century, including some generative techniques for sonnets of your own


S
ONNETS
Tony Barnstone

Willis Barnstone
Lorna Knowles Blake
Kim Bridgford
Billy Collins
Leisha Douglas
Barry Ergang
Ross A. Gay
Soheila Ghaussy This marks an author's first online publication
Miranda Girard This marks an author's first online publication
Myrna Goodman This marks an author's first online publication
Susan Gubernat
Heidi Hart
Jay Leeming This marks an author's first online publication
Anne Marie Macari

Patricia O'Hara
John Poch
Michael Salcman
Patricia Smith
A.E. Stallings

Gerald Stern
Joyce Sutphen
Jeet Thayil
Meredith Trede This marks an author's first online publication

 

A.E. Stallings' first poetry collection, Archaic Smile, received the Richard Wilbur award and was published by the University of Evansville. A second collection, Hapax, is just out from TriQuarterly, and her verse translation of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura (The Nature of Things) is forthcoming from Penguin Classics. She lives in Greece with her husband, John Psaropulos, and their son Jason.

The Argument    


After the argument, all things were strange.
They stood divided by their eloquence
Which had surprised them after so much silence.
Now there were real things to rearrange.
Words betokened deeds, but they were both
Lightened briefly, and they were inclined
To be kind as sometimes strangers can be kind.
It was as if, out of the undergrowth,
They stepped into a clearing and the sun,
Machetes still in hand. Something was done,
But how they did not fully realize.
Something was beginning. Something would stem
And branch from this one moment. Something made
Them both look up into each other's eyes
Because they both were suddenly afraid
And there was no one now to comfort them.

 

 

A.E. Stallings: Poetry
Copyright ©2006 The Cortland Review December 2006 FeatureThe Cortland Review