The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation awards fellowships each year to about 20 recipients. The foundation’s Web site said the fellowship is not rewarded based on accomplishments in the past — it is “an investment in a person’s originality, insight, and potential.” The fellowship — called the “Genius Award” — awards $500,000 to recipients for them to do whatever they wish to expand their creative endeavors.

A.E. Stallings was a Foundation Fellow while at the University. Photo Courtesy of University of Georgia

This year, 1990 University graduate and poet A.E. Stallings was named a MacArthur Fellow and received a cash prize of $500,000, which will be paid in quarterly installments over the next five years. Stallings now lives in Athens, Greece, with her family.

Q: What was your initial reaction when you found out you received the MacArthur fellowship? Did you apply for it? 

A: One doesn’t apply for the MacArthur. It is all rather mysterious. So winning really comes with a shock. Also, it doesn’t always go to a poet.

My seven-year-old picked up the phone when the call came, and my two year old went into a tantrum. I had to actually interrupt the call a couple of times to tell them to hush and that ‘Mommy has a very important phone call right now!’

Q: Poetry doesn’t seem like the kind of creative work that would require money like science or architecture might, for example. Because there aren’t any obvious costs to producing your work, how do you plan on using the money you receive for the fellowship? 

A: Poetry is definitely low overhead — time to think and a pencil. But time — and space — are expensive in their own way. I buy my time from a babysitter, for instance. And we have struggled along for years as a single-income family in Greece. The award seems especially miraculous against the backdrop of the Greek crisis and alleviates much insecurity and anxiety.

On a practical note, the first thing I plan to do is rent an office. My desk is in the living room and I can rarely work there, since the kids tend to demand I look for a lost piece of Playmobil or something. A shy poem will tend to vanish under such circumstances. So I do tend to have to go to a loud, smoky café to work. It would be great to have a quiet place for reflection.

Q: What is your favorite part about Athens, GA? Athens, Greece? 

A: I used to like The Grill — for hamburgers and cherry Coke — The Globe and some places that don’t exist anymore. I love The Tree That Owns Itself on Finley Street. I was a member of the Demosthenian Society and love their elegant building. It was good, too, to have friends of a different political persuasion — you could debate civilly, and then all go out together. We need more of that in our partisan age.

As for Athens, Greece, in summer I love the outdoor cinemas — you can watch an old Hollywood movie and have a beer and see the Parthenon glowing in the background. I love the area of Kerameikos — the ancient cemetery of Athens. It also serves as something of a nature preserve in the cement city, with a river trickling through it, tortoises and dragonflies. The new Parthenon museum is impressive. And I like the First Cemetery of Athens — the modern cemetery — which also serves as something of a park and is full of trees and lovely statuary. Many famous people are buried there — Seferis, Schleimann, T.H. White.

Q: What inspires you to write? What are you passionate about?

A: This really depends. Language itself inspires me. Many of my poems deal with Greek mythology. But also everyday life. Motherhood and childhood are sources I return to.