Winner of the 2006 Sawtooth Poetry Prize from Ahsahta Press, judged by D.A. Powell, Ackerson-Kiely's first book lyricizes a stark and difficult world.
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From Publishers Weekly
The 44 poems that make up Ackerson-Kiely's debut are a pleasure to read and delightfully free from the conceptual projects, gimmickry and silly minutiae of many first books. Ackerson-Kiely tackles familiar subjects—love, work, landscape—in fresh and deeply affecting ways. In "No, I've Had Enough," she writes, "The world/ is limp and furthermore dead and I am so hungry I will not eat a/ single thing as you are everything to me, you are at this instant/ every single thing." This prize-winning book, chosen by D.A. Powell, can be strikingly raw, especially in regard to workaday topics; Ackerson-Kiely expertly navigates a world of low-level office work, one-night stands and Wal-Mart ("the biggest place I have been to date"), illuminating life's unexpected turns and beauty, yet never shying away from its loneliness and despair. In "Nocturne IV," Ackerson-Kiely displays her talent for splendid, unpredictable last lines: "You weren't anywhere I was planning to go," she concludes, "The path from the porch to the car/ for example, feeling my way along." Compelling and inventive, this is a welcome new voice. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
In No One's Land stakes a claim on wilderness and, most assuredly, manages to homestead there. These are not the poems born of quiet contemplation; they are edgy and lurid, painfully administering to the world of convenience stores, diners, one-night stands. "I locked up all the beautiful things that could move me," says Paige Ackerson-Kiely, daring to pick at the raw skin of being and call it beauty: "I am saying God, if you are anywhere, let you be an arctic night." From the starkness of glaciers to the empty refrigerator, these poems rise from the most barren landscapes and manage to make of them fabled islands, joyful joyful things. --D.A. Powell, judge of the Sawtooth Poetry Prize
The poems of this collection show remarkable range--they are at once clean and headlong: driven by music ("Deer at the roadside, deer in the meadow,/ tall grass, headlight. Broken, bro. ken . . .") and driven by imaginative narrative gesture ("It is late and the waitress is shining cutlery, folding cloth squares into neat little tents a boy who is small for his age might imagine sleeping under"). We are surprised as we continue reading. As we should be. In this book, we find straightforward syntax and syntax slightly skewed--and the poems are, whether spare or thick on the page, clear, accessible, realized. Paige Ackerson-Kiely has written a wonderfully cohesive and exciting collection--exciting for its reach and mature and masterful handling of material--and exciting, too, for its promise of what will come. --Martha Rhodes
Paige Ackerson-Kiely's haunted and compelling poems are terse but expansive, and fierce in their disdain of posturing or trivia. In No One's Land introduces us to a poet of genuine originality--and immense talent. --David Wojahn
The poems of this collection show remarkable range--they are at once clean and headlong: driven by music ("Deer at the roadside, deer in the meadow,/ tall grass, headlight. Broken, bro. ken . . .") and driven by imaginative narrative gesture ("It is late and the waitress is shining cutlery, folding cloth squares into neat little tents a boy who is small for his age might imagine sleeping under"). We are surprised as we continue reading. As we should be. In this book, we find straightforward syntax and syntax slightly skewed--and the poems are, whether spare or thick on the page, clear, accessible, realized. Paige Ackerson-Kiely has written a wonderfully cohesive and exciting collection--exciting for its reach and mature and masterful handling of material--and exciting, too, for its promise of what will come. --Martha Rhodes
Paige Ackerson-Kiely's haunted and compelling poems are terse but expansive, and fierce in their disdain of posturing or trivia. In No One's Land introduces us to a poet of genuine originality--and immense talent. --David Wojahn
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