Last month, I posted about a poetic form pantoum. As an example of the form, I linked to a poem by A.E. Stallings called, “Another Lullaby for Insomniacs”. I so enjoyed Stallings’s pantoum, I got her book Like, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
One thing I appreciate about Stallings’s work is the breadth of her poetic sensibilities. She flows easily between free verse and formal poems, Greek mythology and modern mundanety. Stallings seems just as at home with the fantastic as the down to earth. She is as likely to rhyme as not, and the rhymes might not always occur in a regular way. All of this makes her difficult to pigeonhole, which is refreshing to me.
I often feel as if poets are searching for identity in a certain school or style or poetry. Identifying with one school or style requires us to reject (and sometimes even deride) other approaches to poetry. When poets do this, I feel as if we give up a lot of beauty and compelling techniques. We think this makes us unique when, ironically, it makes us the same as the other fish we’re swimming with.
Recently, I contacted Stallings, and she was gracious enough to permit me to share her poem, “Dyeing the Easter Eggs.” It is a short read where spiritual significance incarnates in an every day activity. Stallings beautifully captures the intersection of these things with affection and wonder.
Dyeing the Easter Eggs
by A.E. Stallings
Dyeing the Easter eggs, the children talk
Of dying. Resurrection’s in the air
Like the whiff of vinegar. These eggs won’t hatch,
My daughter says, since they are cooked and dead,
A hard-boiled batch.
I am the children’s blonde American mother,
Who thinks that Easter eggs should be pastel—
But they have icon eyes, and they are Greek.
And eggs should be, they’ve learned at school this week,
Blood red.
We compromise, and some are yellow, or blue,
Or red and blue, assorted purples, mauves,
But most are crimson, a hematic hue
Rubbed to a sheen with chrism of olive oil.
They will not spoil,
As Christian death is a preservative,
As Jesus trampled death and harrowed Hell.
The kids’ palms are incarnadine and violet.
A mess! Go wash your hands! They wash their hands,
Punctilious as Pontius Pilate.
A Wandering Minstrel 