Hello and welcome to the Spectator's Book Club podcast. I'm Sam Leith, the literary editor

of The Spectator, and this week I'm very pleased to be joined by the poet A.E. Stallings,

Alicia Stallings, whose first collection in the UK is This Afterlife. It's a selected poem that draws poems from

her four collections, Archaic Smile, Hapax, olives and like, as well as a couple of uncollected

bits and pieces. And Alicia, can I start with saying, I'm sort of astounded when I got a thing for the publisher,

saying that this was your first UK publication, because I'm sure many of the listeners

that this podcast will know you're a poet of international reputation with prizes.

MacArthur Genius, Grants, Pulitzer short listings, up the wazoo.

Why have you not had a UK publisher before now?

That's a good question.

I mean, I've actually published translations in the UK with Penguin Classics,

but I guess I was focused on getting published in the US,

and maybe I thought the books are also available in the UK,

but I think they're really hard to get in the UK.

And then I thought, you know, a lot of the poems, individual poems I publish are in UK publications.

And I feel like I hope I have a UK readership.

And I thought, it'd be nice if it were a little easier to get a hold of these poems.

And so I was really pleased with Carcannette bringing this out and finally having a UK book.

Well, it's a fantastic collection.

And actually, I introduced you presumptuously as Ely.

You publish as A.E.

Now, I made this mistake with A.M. Holmes when I greeted her by first name,

...