Press & Media
Interviews, Reviews, & Readings
“On the Fairy Tales School of English-Language Poetry”
I am floored to find my work included in this gorgeous critical essay about fairy tales in English-language poetry: On the Fairy Tales School of English-Language Poetry by Daniel Rabuzzi, published here on The Critical Flame.
“Fairy tale poets have long since crashed through the 19th- and 20th-century versions of the most popular tales, the Cinderellas, Snow Whites and Rapunzels sanitized by the Grimms and the Langs, and brought to a high gloss of domesticity by Disney. Poets at least since Sexton have drilled down to the brutal bedrock, to the unrefined ore, uncovering so as to confront the stark realities fairy tales tell about rape, ravenous bellies and gnashing teeth, servitude, maiming, murder, loss, abandonment, entrapment, and every sort of betrayal. As Stacey Balkun underscores in “Dear Darlings”:
We're a labyrinth but we're far from our center.
We are the forest; we are the flood.
You are ours now so forget
the words breath and wave.
We take no pity on you or any child lost
to this wasteland, any woman tossed
from a brighter garden. To us, there's no difference
between burnt and drowned."Sweetbitter Review in RHINO POETRY
"Ultimately, Sweetbitter gives us a catalog of wants for the world: what it could give, as well as what we could give back, in a sustainable interdependency. As so much of the collection is about knowing what couldn’t be known before, it’s a marvel that Balkun’s speaker doesn’t come from a place of regret, but from one of deep astonishment for the world. "THANK YOU to the amazing CT Salazar for this review of Sweetbitter in the newest issue of RHINO! I'm floored. I'm forest floored. Read the whole review here.
Po’ Boys and Poets 2023 Full Video
One Book One New Orleans has added our entire 2023 Po’ Boys and Poets event to their YouTube archive! Check out these stellar readings by Christopher Luis Romaguera, Kelly Clayton, Rain Prudhomme-Cranford, and Stacey at this link.
Hometown News Feature
I am humbled to see this feature of my new book Sweetbitter by Keith Simmons! Much gratitude to my alma mater, Piscataway High School, and my high school English teacher, Maureen McVeigh-Berzok for the early support. Check it out in TapInto New Brunswick & TapInto Piscataway.
Cover Art Interview: Kel Mur
"I think this experience of adjusting one’s own body to make it less attractive or less visible is more universal than we’d think, unfortunately. Our bodies are our means of survival, and I can’t help but feel there’s a deep connection between the survival of non-male-presenting bodies and the survival of the environment.”
So grateful to Kel Mur for having an open conversation with me about art, poetry, and coming of age in a toxic environment. Read our conversation on the The University of Arizona Poetry Center Blog and learn more about the art behind SWEETBITTER (Sundress Publications 2022) here.
Sweetbitter Review in Mom Egg Review
“The genre of this collection is unique, partly coming of age, partly eco-poetry, with that fairytale surrealism, and even a touch of horror and filmic play.” —Ava Silva reviews Sweetbitter for Mom Egg Review Literature & Art online here.
“Duality & Hidden Meaning in Sweetbitter”: Interview
Tiana Nobile asked some great questions about Sweetbitter over at The Southern Review of Books online here.
Interview on The Reading Life
Much gratitude to Susan Larson of The Reading Life for interviewing me on WWNO 89.9 FM! Hear our conversation about Sweetbitter online here.
Nasty Women Poets Read
Listen to the entire panel of Nasty Women Poets from the 2018 Tennessee Williams Festival in New Orleans, LA! I've got a poem about an amazing woman, just about 19 minutes in!
“In the summer of 2019, I joined the New Orleans Writing Marathon and wrote wrote wrote all over the French Quarter for four days straight. Hear the results of our work on this great radio segment by KSLU 90.9 FM below.”
Figure of Speech
I'm so happy to have my poems featured on WRBH's fantastic program Figure of Speech! Hear me talk about myth and magic and read my weird fairy tale poems on Figure of Speech, available online here!
Review
Review of Jackalope-Girl Learns to Speak at The Line Break
"Perhaps another possibility for the lack of adoption poems is the poet not knowing how to successfully write an adoption-centric poem in a way that isn’t predictable, sentimental, insincere, or lacking nuance. Balkun, however, found a way."
The Reading Life
Interview with Susan Larson on The Reading Life, Feb 7, 2017!
Interview
Poet on Poet interview with Jen Hanks at Menacing Hedge, Summer 2016
Stacey: I’m not Jackalope.
Jennifer: Well, everyone’s a little bit of a Jackalope. I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Feature
Author feature on Witty Title Here
What is one lesson that writing has taught you (about writing, the human condition, yourself)?
Writing can give voice to what’s been silenced. Jackalope-Girl helped me deal with family history, and my most recent poems focus on female surrealist painters (whom history has largely ignored) to bring to light their work and their lives.
Interview
by Nicole Rollender on Carpe Noctem
What do you love to find in a poem you read, or love to craft into a poem you’re writing?
Surprise. I love magical real & fabulist elements, especially when they’re doing some heavy metaphorical lifting. I also love a sense of place and always, always musicality in the language.
Lost City Museum Review
"St. Thomas writes that prophetic vision is not a matting of “seeing clearly, but of seeing what is distant, hidden.” Balkun’s masterful distraction, in this way, is to me as much about rumbling with grief as having the courage to eschew the reckless luxury of certitude. "
Read more at www.antenna.works
Did parts of your chapbooks grow out of your Fresno State MFA thesis manuscript, Mapparium, which you described as “a collection of poetry about disconnect”?
Lost City Museum is very closely connected to Mapparium. Several poems appear in both, though the chapbook ultimately goes further along the narrative timeline. Like Mapparium, it is a book about loss, distance, and growth. Its poems borrow imagery from museum exhibits and the natural world, especially of water.
Review
Review of Jackalope-Girl Learns to Speak at Heart What Art Are You?
"The language was refreshing. As in, the going-for-a-hot-shower-on-a-cold-day kind of refreshing. There wasn’t any try-hard poetics going on. It was genuine, it was real, and it was lovely"