Hapax: Poems Book

Perhaps it is a soft spot I have for Christian New Formalism or perhaps as a former expatriate who is also from Georgia I identify with Stallings or perhaps it is my love of the classical Hellenic philosophy and literature, but Stallings gets me with this book that I would often not relate to or like as much as I do. Stalling's use of high conceptual frameworks is mellowed by her concrete language and direct form: Stalling's poems are easy to read, easy to superficially understand on an initial reading, but are deceptive in that unfold if mediate on the tensions with the complexity of the concepts. Many readers will find the titles "pretentious" (a word often used when pompous or esoteric would be more technically correct) and her formalism and direct language "accessible." This is a trick though: Stallings is often building a ease with the reader in other to led the theological or philosophical problem she is trying to embody present itself in reflection. Stallings also has a wry sense of humor that relieves her work from the seriousness that sometimes infects other difficult new formalist poets such as Mark Jarman or Geoffrey Hill. Stallings does ask the reader to be willing to check allusions to both Christian and classical Greek references, but does not do so in an alienating way.