Abby+Johnson+-+A.E.+Stallings

It is no punishment. They are mistaken – [1] The brothers, the father. My prayers were answered. I was all fingertips. Nothing was perfect: What I had woven, the moths will have eaten; At the end of my rope was a noose’s knot. [5]
 * __Arachne Gives Thanks to Athena__**

Now it’s no longer the thing, but the pattern, And that will endure, even though webs be broken.

I, if not beautiful, am beauty’s maker. Old age cannot rob me, nor cowardly lovers. The moon once pulled blood from me. Now I pull silver. [10] Here are the lines I pulled from my own belly – Hang them with rainbows, ice, dewdrops, darkness.
 * A.E. Stallings**

A common source of subject matter for much of A.E. Stallings’ poetry is classical mythology. In “Arachne Gives Thanks to Athena”, Stallings references the myth of Arachne, a talented weaver whose hubris ultimately results in her being turned into a spider by Athena. This is the “punishment” mentioned in the opening line; the speaker of the poem is Arachne herself, speaking to Athena. Her tone in the opening stanza may be interpreted as defiant, which makes sense given her famous defiance in the myth, when she refuses to take back her claim that she is a more skillful weaver than Athena, even when confronted by the goddess herself. In the opening stanza, Arachne claims that Athena’s punishment is no punishment after all, that it’s actually what Arachne had wanted; her “prayers were answered” (Stallings 2). Her defiance and possible sarcasm continues to the third line, in which she derides her weaving work that she had once boasted about so dangerously. Her tapestry, which was even more beautiful than the one made by Athena herself, she now calls imperfect—while this is a reflection on the transience of human life and material goods, it also seems to be a final insult to Athena.

Additionally, the fourth line is interesting in its reference to moths. The poem contains a contrast between Arachne’s mortal life as a human and her “immortality” as a spider; the moths eating her weaving is symbolic of human mortality. Interestingly, as a spider, this relationship is reversed. Spider webs are used to trap moths; instead of the moths eating her tapestries, she herself will now eat the moths.

In the fifth and final line of the first stanza, Arachne seems to take a more serious and genuine tone. The dactylic meter sustained throughout most of the poem is broken, as the line begins with an anapestic foot, suggesting emotional distress. The figurative language of the line plays with the idea of suicide. “At the end of my rope” not only is an idiom itself (when someone has had enough and is desperate enough to take drastic action, she is said to be “at the end of her rope”), but also continues Arachne’s metaphor of weaving and references the Greek mythological idea of one’s life as represented by a string, which is “cut” by the Fates at death. The fifth line definitely refers to Arachne’s death. In the myth, she became so ashamed and afraid of Athena’s wrath that the hanged herself. The line of her life literally ended in “a noose’s knot” (Stallings 5).

In the last stanza, this tone of genuine gratitude continues. She gives thanks for her freedom from mortal issues such as old age and “cowardly lovers” (Stallings 9) and takes a more obviously positive stance on her transformation and the freedom it has given her, as shown through repetition of the powerful, active verb “pull” in lines ten and eleven. Line eleven begins with the word “here,” suggesting a sort of offering to the goddess as some would light candles or burn sacrifices in thanksgiving or prayer. In the last line, Arachne alludes to her death again through the word “hang”—but this time, she is speaking about her spider-web. The slow rhythm of the last line breaks the dactylic pattern, emphasizing the imagery of the last few words of the poem.

In this poem, I liked the clever wordplay and the mythological references (which is why I chose Stallings as my poet study). I also liked the unique view the poem took on spiders, which are often seen as negative symbols; I myself have always liked spiders, and appreciated the spider-sympathy of the poem.




 * __All Hallows__**

The thin hands of the trees [1] Blow away, waving goodbye.

Haunted with similes Is the house of memory—

The one who has departed, [5] The one who left you alone.

The bulbs are in their bed Feeding on their meal of bone.

The jack-o-lanterns bear Brief, vegetable witness [10]

As ghosts tap at the door Still hungering after sweetness.


 * A.E. Stallings**

This poem seems to have a mostly iambic meter, with a few breaks. The first line of the poem contains one of the poems most powerful images—the “thin hands of the trees” (Stallings 1)—an image that seems to be reflected in the layout of the poem itself, in its sparse, two-line stanzas. The “wave goodbye” found in the second line is ironic, given that it is in the first stanza of the poem; the act of waving goodbye is emphasized in the quick dactyl that breaks the meter at the end of this line.

The second stanza contains breaks in the metrical pattern as well, to emphasize the poem’s main idea, the memory of something the speaker has apparently lost, an idea introduced by the trees’ act of waving goodbye to something. Although “similes” and “memory” are meant to rhyme with other words, they stand out in this stanza because both words are dactyls found at the end of their lines.

In the third stanza, the iambic meter is strongest, and the limping meter combined with the repetition of the first three words gives the stanza a sort of rhythmic numbness, evoking a powerful sense of loss. The fourth stanza seems to move on from memory as it mentions flower bulbs, bringing to mind rebirth and new beginnings—however, these flower bulbs are “feeding on their meal of bone” (Stallings 8). This juxtaposition of life and death imagery gives the poem its dark tone but also suggests the connection between the past and the future, as the composted “bone” seems to be tied to the speaker’s memory which is haunting him/her, and thus preventing him/her from moving on.

The last stanza brings the poem full-circle, as “ghosts tap at the door” (Stallings 11). The actions of greeting/saying goodbye seem to be switched, as the poem began with an image of waving farewell and ends with a line about knocking on a door. The figurative ghosts in this line are possibly the similes which “haunt” the “house of memory” (Stallings 4), and the last line suggests that the “sweetness” is long gone.

I chose this poem because, even though it’s March, Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I liked the simple and sparse structure of the poem and the interesting phrases (“brief, vegetable witness” [Stallings 10]), and appreciated the poem’s haunting and sad mood.

This is Halloween!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpvdAJYvofI


 * __Watching the Vulture at the Road Kill__**

You know Death by his leisure—take [1] The time we saw the vulture make His slow, hot-air-balloon descent To a possum smashed beside the pavement. We stopped the car to watch. Too close, [5] He bounced his moon-walk bounce and rose With a shrug up to the kudzu sleeve Of a pine, to wait for us to leave. What else can afford to linger? The eagle has his trigger-finger, [10] Quails and doves their shell-shocked nerves— There is no peace but scavengers.


 * A.E. Stallings**

Death and rebirth in both the natural and mythological world seem to be frequent themes in Stallings’ poetry; this is one poem out of many that deals with a hunting/scavenging animal. I chose this poem because I liked the rhyme scheme and the unusual take on a symbol of Death.

While the title seems informal and modern (with the use of the colloquial term “road kill”), the first line of the poem immediately sets up a more serious or even reverent tone with the reference to “Death”, which in this case is personified by the titular vulture. Going with the idea of “leisure”, the poem’s meter is iambic, which sounds rhythmic and relaxed and is echoed later in the poem by the description of the vulture’s limping, bouncing motion. The third line describes the vulture’s “slow, hot-air-balloon descent” (Stallings 3), beginning the idea of describing animals in terms of human machines and creations and effectively capturing the image of the vulture flying—here, too, the iambic meter is especially powerful; the reader gets the impression that the vulture is slowly circling to the ground. The meter is then temporarily broken in the beginning of the fourth line, to emphasize the violence and abruptness of the word “smashed” in contrast to the vulture’s graceful movement. Additionally, the use of the words “smashed” and “pavement” show the poem’s pattern of juxtaposing modern, irreverent details and diction with profound statements (just as “Road Kill” in the title was followed by a grand personification of Death). The enjambment following the period at the end of the fifth line mimics the vulture’s hesitation and takeoff, and the repetition of the word “bounce” in the sixth line (along with the iambic meter) makes the image of “bouncing” especially vivid.

The seventh and eighth lines indicate the beginning of a tonal shift, as the meter is broken slightly at the beginning of the two lines—the more rapid-sounding short syllables mimic the vulture’s flight and “shrug”. In the last four lines, the meter changes subtly but significantly, as the pattern of short and stressed syllables reverses for lines nine and eleven. This meter change shows how the poem has now shifted focus and tone entirely, as the ninth line asks a rhetorical question that sums up the meaning of the poem. Two other kinds of animals—eagles (hunters) and quails and doves (prey)—are mentioned in lines ten and eleven; they are described in warlike terms with the eagle having a “trigger-finger” and the doves having “shell-shocked nerves” (Stallings 10, 11). In contrast, the vulture, the scavenger—a category of animal commonly thought to be inferior and ignoble—is the only creature that can experience true peace; the last line brings the poem full-circle as it basically summarizes the statement being made by the very first line. In doing so, Stallings seems to make a point about the nature of Death itself—it seems more peaceful and calm rather than aggressive and offensive; however, it can be interpreted as all the more sinister as the vulture (symbolizing Death) is inevitable, as it can afford to wait in the tree until the watchers leave.




 * __Aeaea__**

Less an island than a cry [1] Dumb animals might howl or sigh.

By dumb, I mean not, voicelessly, But denote, “without syntax,” free From consonants’ civility. [5]

The “no hard feelings,” the “goodbye,” The (wh) y in you that is not I.


 * A.E. Stallings**

This shorter poem returns to Stallings’ habit of writing about characters and scenes from classical mythology. Aeaea is the island from Homer’s //The Odyssey// which is home to the sorceress Circe, who was infamous for turning men into animals (the most well-known being pigs) and who was Odysseus’ lover for a year. While this knowledge of the background story does add a lot to the meaning of the poem, it isn’t completely necessary to understand it.

The first line is interesting; I had to read it a few times before I realized that it is referring to the name of the island itself. “Aeaea” (pronounced “ee-EE-ah”) does sound more like a cry or an animal noise than a real word or the name of a place, when spoken aloud. The sad/wistful tone of the poem is established in the very beginning by the negative first word “less” and the choice of the word “cry” (which is more connected to a feeling of grief or loss than words like “shout”). The second line directly references the myth of Aeaea; on the island, the “dumb animals” (Stallings 2) are animals who had once been people; Circe transformed them into lions, wolves, pigs, etc. The second line also seems to be contradictory with the double meaning of the word “dumb”—it wouldn’t make sense for speechless creatures to make “howls” or “sighs”, a paradox which adds to the disorienting mood of the poem (as the island itself is an unnatural and disorienting place).

The third line addresses this contradiction; by saying that “dumb” does not mean “voicelessly,” it seems to suggest that the animals are stupid—which makes sense in the myth, as the transformed humans lacked the instincts and common sense of real animals. However, line four redefines “dumb” to mean “without syntax, free/From consonants’ civility” (Stallings 4-5). This not only applies to the animals themselves, who are incapable of true speech and can only make vowel sounds (shrieks, howls, etc.), but also refers to the title and the name of the island itself, Aeaea, which is a strange word composed entirely of vowels—it lacks “consonants’ civility” (Stallings 5), suggesting that it is a wild and savage place both because it is filled with animals and because it does not sound like a human word (language being one of the cores of civilizations). Additionally, the enjambment of line four places emphasis on the word “free” and serves to imply, for a moment, that the animals themselves are free—which is ironic, as they are literally trapped on the island. The meter throughout the poem is mostly iambic; however, in the fourth line it has a very significant change and sounds broken and almost awkward, emphasizing the animals’ and Aeaea’s lack of syntax.

The last two lines seem to shift from the rest of the poem’s focus as they no longer refer to the animals and instead bring up the idea of loss that was suggested in the first line. In contrast to the wordless noises and howls that filled the last five lines, line six contains two distinct, human phrases; perhaps this separates the island’s animal residents from its human visitors. It could refer to Odysseus’ departure from the island after spending a year with Circe, but it could also refer to the previous visitors who had fled the island and abandoned their former friends who had been turned into animals. Either way, it stands in sharp contrast to the rest of the poem’s animal noises, suggesting that the one leaving is incapable of truly understanding (doesn’t “speak the same language as”) the friend(s) he leaves behind. The last line emphasizes this separation and misunderstanding a final time and contains some clever wordplay with the words “I” and the letter “(wh) y in you” (Stallings 7).

media type="youtube" key="MvFrQ0DHNFk" height="315" width="420" A very short and terrible animated representation of the scene from //The Odyssey.//