A. E. Stallings, whose poetry collection Archaic Smile received the 1999 Richard Wilbur Award, studied Classics at the University of Georgia and Oxford University. Her poems have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies including Poetry, Sparrow, The Formalist, Atlanta Review, Pushcart Prize XXII, and The Best American Poetry (1994). She has also received the 1997 Eunice Tietjens Memorial Prize from Poetry magazine and the 1999 James Dickey Prize from Five Points.

About Archaic Smile:

"A. E. Stallings's Archaic Smile marks a debut of geniune distinction. At a time when so much new poetry seems somber and lackluster, Stallings displays extraordinary powers of invention and delight. Here is a first book that is both slyly original and irresistibly personable."
—Dana Gioia

"There is nothing inhibitied about the work of A. E. Stallings, and its discipline is stunning. As with any born technician (not, I think, a contradiction) the simplest devices turn to gold in her hands, and the technique always has a purpose: to make us realize that the ancients, their heroes and heroines, their gods and goddesses, with their frequent follies and their occasional miracles, were not really like us. They were us."
—Turner Cassity

"A. E. Stallings' poems have the strength and tension of 'the invisible line pulled taut.' Familiar myths receive unexpected voicings, unfamiliar events take on resonant aspects. Witty, surprising, sturdy, Archaic Smile is a collection of fresh pleasures."
—Fred Chappell

"Archaic Smile is a collection in which splendid formal technique merges with voices lifting out of the mist. In love with Greece, A. E. Stallings is in love with the world. Raves are in order: This brilliant debut immediately puts Stallings very much in the front rank of young American poets."
—Dick Allen