Lifting Stones

Lifting Stones-v2-1.jpg

Lifting Stones

$15.95

Doug Stanfield
June 8, 2021

“A lovely, relatable set of poems for the heartbroken and helpless romantics.” —Kirkus Reviews

2021 IPNE Finalist, Poetry

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Format: 6 x 9 paperback
Release Date: June 8, 2021
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-57869-058-9
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-57869-075-6
LCCN: 2021902970
eBook: 978-1-57869-059-6: Click Here to Purchase eBook
Booksellers and Libraries: Order Here.

EXCERPT

Lifting Stones

Poetry is an odd occupation: Lift
a stone to see what’s beneath. Write
a few heavy, care-rounded words. Stare
at the damp past, watching secrets scuttle,
blinking in unwelcome light.
Lift the words, too, that want
to dawn with each day
and pile them in a cairn—mark
the trail and keep on, no idea if another
solitary pilgrim will chance past,
maybe years from now, pause
a moment, then reveal their own hidden things.

SYNOPSIS

Lifting Stones is an autobiography of sorts; a travel journal where the poet travels in nature and into memories of love, hope, grief, and loss. “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards,” wrote Søren Kierkegaard, and this is the genesis of Stanfield’s collection. His poems understand a life by looking back along the trail, seeing clearly for the first time, stacking personal, grounded word formations like rock cairns left for the next traveler: a way for stones, and words, to live forward.

PRAISE

“Lifting Stones is a tender artistry. This poetry is an unfurling of wings, and a fanning out in every heartfelt direction, reaching all of life’s heights and depths. There is humility and there is enormous bravery. Within the pages there is no finite limit to Stanfield’s poetic skill, nor to his quality…it is a singular collection of clarity, warmth, grief, humour, agony, mortality, recollection, despair, and rebirth. It is an expedition, not a journey’s end. It is a unique work of life via poetry, a kaleidoscopic gallery of this poet’s genuine experience laid bare. Stanfield writes with a dignity. He writes with a frank self-respect that is, to borrow his exquisite words, ‘eternally becoming.’”

—Mandi Greenwood, author of Six Steps Down, Caught Inside, and The Silver Renoir

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"The first time I read Lifting Stones, I did so like a fresh pancake of Silly Putty just out of its egg; guileless-ready for whatever impression these pages left as I pressed into it. The second time, I was a returning tourist, dying to revisit all the amazing feelings from my unforgettable first trip to a lucky-find destination. Time three, I’m an excited child; tucked in, and barely able to contain my answer to the inevitable question, ‘What story do you want tonight?’ And there will be more. Stanfield’s poetry is consummate storytelling: heartbreaking, funny, authentic, and masterfully crafted. And this beautiful collection of memories, musings, and hopes, has brought me back to a too-often neglected art form, possibly more necessary now than ever.”

—Kat Mullaly, Toronto actor, producer, director and creative-for-hire

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“I love that amid the clear-eyed Mary Oliver-ish lyricism of Doug Stanfield’s poems, there are lines like: ‘...older men and women bring experienced stupidity to the bed.’ This is the work of a man who has lived, and learned—and continues to do so with both strength and vulnerability. ‘I’m not brave,’ he writes. But he is. ‘I'm tired of being a grown-up,’ he writes. There is no weariness to these poems. They sing. They shine.”  

—Lauren Kessler, author of ten works of literary nonfiction

______________________

“Doug Stanfield writes of love and grief and of a kaleidoscope of emotions in between. He is a deft and sensitive chronicler of the human condition and of the world we live in, crafting poetical images with great sensitivity and skill. He writes of the journey we all take and the memories of those journeys and the lessons learnt. There is a saying: ‘what is man but a repository of memories?’ Stanfield documents the journey in words to remember.”

—Iffat Shah, physician and writer

MEET DOUG

 
Photo by Journey Melson, Tacoma

Photo by Journey Melson, Tacoma

Doug Stanfield grew up in western Ohio as the son of a teacher and a nurse. After many years working in journalism and public relations, he is now retired and writes poetry in western Washington, at the base of the Olympic Mountains. He was a finalist for author of the year with the Annual Spillwords Press Awards in 2019. Lifting Stones is his third book of poetry. Visit his website, dwstanfield.com.