Pushcart Winner to Read at West Chester

A.E. Stallings, known as one of her generation’s most accomplished poets, comes to West Chester University on Tuesday, Oct. 23, to give a lecture and poetry reading at Philips Autograph Library in Philips Memorial Building. Before her 7 p.m. reading, Stallings will discuss the traditional craft of poetry at a 4 p.m. lecture. Both events are free and open to the public.

Her poetry has been awarded various prizes, including a Pushcart Prize, the Eunice Tietjens Prize in 1997 and the Frederick Bock Prize in 2004 from Poetry, the James Dickey Prize from Five Points, and the Nemerov Sonnet Award from the Formalist. Her first poetry collection, Archaic Smile, was awarded the 1999 Richard Wilbur Award.

When Stallings’ Hapax was publishedin 2006, New York Times’ poetry reviewer Eric McHenry wrote: “Strict fidelity to traditional forms is brave — not only because these forms are unfashionable but because they’re unforgiving. … Stallings deserves high marks not only for the performances in Hapax but for their degree of difficulty.”

In addition to her two published selections, Stallings’ poems have also appeared in the 1994 and 2000 anthologies The Best of American Poetry.

Born in Decatur, Ga., in 1968, Stallings studied classics at the University of Georgia and Oxford University. She now lives in Athens, Greece, with her husband, John Psaropoulos, and son Jason.

Stallings’ poet-in-residence reading is part of the Poetry Center’s poetry reading series, which hosts poets throughout the year. The Poetry Center is nationally known for its annual poetry conference, established in 1995 by Michael Peich, the director of the Poetry Center, and poet/critic Dana Gioia, now chair of the National Endowment for the Arts. The Center’s new location at 823 South High Street was made possible by a $1.2 million endowment from the National Endowment for the Humanities, part of a $300,000 challenge grant matched three-to-one by the University in order to create a permanent endowment to support the Center’s activities.

Information: Jamie Smith, assistant director of the Poetry Center at 610-436-3235 or e-mail poetry@wcupa.edu.