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Dolefully, A Rampart Stands

Part of Penguin Poets

Author Paige Ackerson-Kiely
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$18.00 US
Penguin Adult HC/TR | Penguin Books
24 per carton
On sale Feb 05, 2019 | 9780143132684
Sales rights: World
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A collection of haunting, image-rich poems about isolation, captivity, and vanishing.

The poems in Paige Ackerson-Kiely's third collection are set primarily in the rural northeast of America, and explore rural poverty, entrapment, captivity, violence, and a longing to vanish. Ranging from free verse to a long noir prose poem, they examine who her, or our, "captors" might be. Ackerson-Kiely is interested in characters who are aware of their foibles, and who find ways to turn away from those problems in search of connection and freedom.
Inventory of Ramparts
 
The pier shed its long
splinters into the lake.
 
A dinghy rubbed the side of the dock
but the dock was still.
 
Some kids ditched a canoe in the reeds
—the boy’s voice was a reed—
 
they pulled it up the embankment by a rope
where no one could see it from water
 
or shore. His voice covered everything.
This isn’t an opportunity to talk about the body,

how many dogs you get to have over
the course of a life. I’d reckon 6, if you take
 
good care of them. I’m going back in time
to hold the boy’s head underwater.
 
Just to give him a little scare. The canoe
had vanished when they returned
 
and his voice became a basket
pushed down a river—nothing specific—
 
and anyway, this isn’t an occasion to talk
about the body. I’m busy going, I need

to go, back through those boggy years to kiss
all of the dogs. Hard, on the mouth.
Copyright © 2019 by Paige Ackerson-Kiely. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Praise for Dolefully, A Rampart Stands:

“Ackerson-Kiely’s talent for the uncanny is extraordinary. Her ability to create entire atmospheres through single lines elevates her poems to something approaching the oracular, while never straying from the colloquial and the quotidian . . . Dolefully, a Rampart Stands announces a pastoral poetry for the 21st Century . . . a brilliantly disquieting collection.” —Rain Taxi Review

“Playful, punchy, clever, and strange, Ackerson-Kiely’s poems are on-rhythm and off-center . . . some of the most unique pieces you’ll read this year.” –The Millions, "Must-Read Poetry" 

“Dark, yet brimming with life.” —HelloGiggles 

“Ackerson-Kiely sketches a landscape in which sexism and economic oppression are indelibly linked . . . [revealing] the ways that power, censorship, and disbelief are internalized, as they live with us in our most solitary moments, and they circumscribe what is possible within our dreaming.” –Kristina Marie Darling, Kenyon Review 

“[Paige Ackerson-Kiely]’s third collection pulls no punches in depicting rural life, rustic customs, and the concerns of bar patrons and working folks. Her poems frequently escape into wildly imaginative imagery . . . consistently one of the most nuanced poets writing today, [she] offers evocative and unmatched verisimilitude.” –Booklist


Praise for My Love Is a Dead Arctic Explorer:

“Funny and wild with expertly conceived images . . . [Ackerson-Kiely’s] poems make the familiar more familiar . . . and remind us to be absolutely shot through with anxiety and uncertainty and desire.” —Michael Robbins, Chicago Tribune

“Dark, full of nature, and full of life, this collection will snarl its way into your soul.” —Flavorwire

About

A collection of haunting, image-rich poems about isolation, captivity, and vanishing.

The poems in Paige Ackerson-Kiely's third collection are set primarily in the rural northeast of America, and explore rural poverty, entrapment, captivity, violence, and a longing to vanish. Ranging from free verse to a long noir prose poem, they examine who her, or our, "captors" might be. Ackerson-Kiely is interested in characters who are aware of their foibles, and who find ways to turn away from those problems in search of connection and freedom.

Excerpt

Inventory of Ramparts
 
The pier shed its long
splinters into the lake.
 
A dinghy rubbed the side of the dock
but the dock was still.
 
Some kids ditched a canoe in the reeds
—the boy’s voice was a reed—
 
they pulled it up the embankment by a rope
where no one could see it from water
 
or shore. His voice covered everything.
This isn’t an opportunity to talk about the body,

how many dogs you get to have over
the course of a life. I’d reckon 6, if you take
 
good care of them. I’m going back in time
to hold the boy’s head underwater.
 
Just to give him a little scare. The canoe
had vanished when they returned
 
and his voice became a basket
pushed down a river—nothing specific—
 
and anyway, this isn’t an occasion to talk
about the body. I’m busy going, I need

to go, back through those boggy years to kiss
all of the dogs. Hard, on the mouth.
Copyright © 2019 by Paige Ackerson-Kiely. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Praise

Praise for Dolefully, A Rampart Stands:

“Ackerson-Kiely’s talent for the uncanny is extraordinary. Her ability to create entire atmospheres through single lines elevates her poems to something approaching the oracular, while never straying from the colloquial and the quotidian . . . Dolefully, a Rampart Stands announces a pastoral poetry for the 21st Century . . . a brilliantly disquieting collection.” —Rain Taxi Review

“Playful, punchy, clever, and strange, Ackerson-Kiely’s poems are on-rhythm and off-center . . . some of the most unique pieces you’ll read this year.” –The Millions, "Must-Read Poetry" 

“Dark, yet brimming with life.” —HelloGiggles 

“Ackerson-Kiely sketches a landscape in which sexism and economic oppression are indelibly linked . . . [revealing] the ways that power, censorship, and disbelief are internalized, as they live with us in our most solitary moments, and they circumscribe what is possible within our dreaming.” –Kristina Marie Darling, Kenyon Review 

“[Paige Ackerson-Kiely]’s third collection pulls no punches in depicting rural life, rustic customs, and the concerns of bar patrons and working folks. Her poems frequently escape into wildly imaginative imagery . . . consistently one of the most nuanced poets writing today, [she] offers evocative and unmatched verisimilitude.” –Booklist


Praise for My Love Is a Dead Arctic Explorer:

“Funny and wild with expertly conceived images . . . [Ackerson-Kiely’s] poems make the familiar more familiar . . . and remind us to be absolutely shot through with anxiety and uncertainty and desire.” —Michael Robbins, Chicago Tribune

“Dark, full of nature, and full of life, this collection will snarl its way into your soul.” —Flavorwire

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