Description

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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 S ren 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.

About the Author

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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, https://dwstanfield.com.

Praise For…

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“Lifting Stones is a tender artistry…a unique work of life via poetry, a kaleidoscopic gallery of this poet’s genuine experience laid bare.” —Mandi Greenwood, author of Six Steps Down

“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