#paige ackerson kiely

[whisperthatruns]

Ellesmere Island

You have a job at a pet store. $12/hour. You face the leashes and dog toys, clean the cages and place the rodents destined for the boa constrictor into the freezer first, because you've read Jack London and know that they will go numb, which will hurt, but then they will go to sleep, which is, in your experience, gentle. There is a heroin epidemic in your small, northern town. People going numb all over the place. You don't know their names, you don't name them. Like Hazen, on Ellesmere Island, is a thermal oasis. In the summer it gets so warm you can walk in up to your neck. Still, everyone craves the buried heart 1,000 meters deep in the ice. It'll take a bomb to open that baby up, to expose those guts, to get to the thing we all take for granted as alive. You're comforted by Ellesmere Island, where rats might sleep for thousands of years, waiting for scientists to chip them out, to insert the long needle into their necks. A man rushes in, holds up the pet store with a fishing knife. For a moment you are frozen, but then you put the bills on the counter and raise your hands in the air. The beast in the freezer shifts on the rack, closes its eyes. The man does the same in the parking lot. 120 people visit Lake Hazen every summer and post pictures. During your lunch break you scroll through them on your phone.

Paige Ackerson-Kiely, Dolefully, a Rampart Stands (Penguin Poets, 2019)

[the-final-sentence]

No handkerchief, no audience, I gunned it out of there like loose change demands to be dropped, heads     upon the asphalt, glinting in the sun, some fool's lucky day— I know there is light at the end.

Paige Ackerson-Kiely, from "Credit"

[ojo-rojo]

"I ran my hands over the entire world, / brought them to my mouth".

Paige Ackerson-Kiely, a fragment from “Stations” in "My Love is a Dead Arctic Explorer".

[amnesiaguy]

hello the terror enjoyers. i am not one of you yet but i may be someday. have you all read the poem “my love is a dead arctic explorer” by paige ackerson-kiely

[sapphicscience]

12 / 35 / 36 for the book ask game? :) & also feel free to recommend a poetry collection if you'd like, i can see you Going Through It on the dash kfhdk

12. Favorite horror book(s).

mmm i haven't read as much horror as i'd like, it was my top genre last year but that's not saying much bc i only read about 20 books. #1 is our wives under the sea, which i think was over-marketed as horror but technically they're calling it that and it's a perfect book so i've gotta put it in here. i also really loved what moves the dead. so much more i need to read!

35. Least favorite trope in your most favorite book genre.

ohhhhh interesting! i have never thought about this before. idk i'm honestly a sucker for most horror tropes lmao.

36. Your absolute most favorite character(s) from any book you've ever read.

oh what a question! first answer that comes to mind is lyra silvertongue...i need to reread his dark materials or at least catch up on the hbo series...SUCH a character of all time.

BONUS: poetry collection rec (lol thank you!)

one of my favorite less famous poetry collections (was assigned in college bc my prof was friends with the author) is in no one's land by paige ackerson-kiely. i bought her most recent collection recently bc i loved the first one so much and i didn't love the latest the same way unfortunately. however i can't find anything from her first collection online so if you want to check out her work you can start with this! not my fave of hers but still nice

send me book asks!

[lifeinpoetry]

I fell to my knees and no one tried to catch me. I fell to my knees and made love to what was there.

Paige Ackerson-Kiely, from “Liberation Poem,” Dolefully, A Rampart Stands

[treforbelmont]

Some Reasons For The Woods

More than knotweed, or the trammeled stylings of Karen Dalton--

(how hard it is to tell who’s gonna love you the best)

More than a dissonant thrum of bored fingertips on some imaculate surface beating out: Shut-up-and-move-on-with-it--

Or vegetal reliquaries bound in soil absent of prestige; throwing away the contents of a fridge--

In spite of the hopeful looks of children forming a straight line at the door the appearance of gratitude and resignation difficult to delineate,

like the border in Northern Maine-- thicketed wasteland limped across in hopes of finitude,

not the getting-shot-at kind, but the end of such vastness-- More than that, even.

The trees, lo, the trees. More than their cowering hair, the ruthless angle of their bodies poised skyward--

How they bend over you with what appears like concern. Like most Americans, you approach everything with an unexpressed need for consolation.

It isn’t a crime to walk into the smudge of forest asking, have you ever felt? No. The trees do not think you are crazy. The trees do not consider you at all.

-Paige Ackerson-Kiely, from My Love is a Dead Arctic Explorer

[liquidlightandrunningtrees]

Something is always burning inside of you; it is not terrible to burn.

Paige Ackerson-Kiely, On the Gentle Nature of Swales

[thebookbinger]

[poetsandwriters]

Since there are so few opportunities to experience a feeling of freedom in my life, I do not allow rules and regulations to dictate my writing—it’s one thing I can control. I’ve always been a striver, and it just hasn’t brought me the satisfaction I thought it would. Also, my livelihood has never depended on a publication record. So, I’m trying to be done with striving when I have the ability to make that choice. Listen, I am middle-aged, I’m not trying to be a big deal, why should I make writing poems, something I love (and how many things do you really get to love in this life?), into another opportunity to suffer? I write when I can, wherever I am, and I am trying to accept this commitment to lawlessness.

Paige Ackerson-Kiely, in this week’s Ten Questions; read the rest at pw.org!

[bonesoflumiere]

“Something is always burning inside of you; it is not terrible to burn.”

— Paige Ackerson-Kiely, from “On the Gentle Nature of Swales,” In No One’s Land

[dislocatedwishbone]

Murder is also classical.  I know what you deserve.

— Paige Ackerson-Kiely, “The Rose Bush” from Dolefully, A Rampart Stands

[facinaoris]

I have never been a lonely god but can relate / to inventing warm bodies. - Paige Ackerson-Kiely

[fairycosmos]

hi, sorry for bothering but could i get a quote too please? only if you want to, have a nice week!

ur not bothering me at all!! of course!! :)

“i remember you,in honey, in old combs,in the faded colours of clotheshanging in the garden.” - pratyusha, excerpt of ‘starflowers’.

“life with you was lovely - and when i say lovely, i mean doves and lilies, and velvet, and that soft pink ‘v’ in the middle and the way our tongues curved up to the long, lingering 'i.’ our life together was alliterative, and when i think of all the little things that will die, now that we cannot share them, i feel as if we were dead too.“ - from the real life of sebastian knight. 

“something is always burning inside of you; it is not terrible to burn.” - paige ackerson-kiely, from “on the gentle nature of swales.”

“i want something else. i’m not even sure what to call it anymore except i know it feels roomy and it’s drenched in sunlight and it’s weightless and i know it’s not cheap. probably not even real.” — mark z. danielewski from ‘house of leaves.’thank you so much for being so sweet :( i hope you like these !! you have a wonderful blog. have a nice week too ok

[sapphicscience]

#3, #19, #30

3 - nostalgia-inducing possession?

he lives at my mom's house but bearskin the large teddy bear. no i don't know why i named him that, i was 5 and it was not intended to be morbid.

19 - poem?

ohhhhh hm. probably one from a collection i have by paige ackerson-kiely, who my professor made us read in college because he was friends with her lmao. i can't remember the title OR any lines from it right now though, sorry. slkjdflskdjf if i remember when i get home i'll reblog with it

30 - book shorter than 300 pages?

[checks how long our wives under the sea is] yeah it's our wives under the sea <3

thank you!!!

[lifeinpoetry]

If you want to love a thing forever / don’t take your eyes off its face.

Paige Ackerson-Kiely, from “The Rose Bush,” Dolefully, A Rampart Stands