Beating the Bounds

by Liz Ahl

Poems by Liz Ahl

"Witty, unsparing, Liz Ahl weds a keen understanding of rhetoric with a lush
savoring of language’s pleasures. I hunger for more."
—Robin Becker

"Growing up as a 'Navy Brat,' Liz Ahl long identified as the 'Woman from Away,' but in Beating the Bounds she embarks on the adventure of staying put in small-town New England."
—Grace Bauer

Volume XI of the Hobblebush Granite State Poetry Series.

Genres: Poetry

100 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2017

About the author

Liz Ahl is a poet and teacher who lives in New Hampshire. Her most recent poetry collection, Beating the Bounds, was published in 2017 by Hobblebush Books. Her poems have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Measure, Prairie Schooner, Sinister Wisdom, Lavender Review, and North American Review, among other journals. Her work has also been included in several anthologies, including Show Us Your Papers (Main Street Rag, 2020), Nasty Women Poets (Lost Horse Press, 2017), and This Assignment Is So Gay (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2013), among others. Her first chapbook, A Thirst That’s Partly Mine, won the 2008 Slapering Hol chapbook contest. She has been awarded residencies at Jentel, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, the Vermont Studio Center, the Playa Artist Residency Program, and the Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow.

Reviews

[Ron Mohring · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having admired Liz's poems for the better part of a decade, I was thrilled to hear that she'd finally published a full-length collection. I started reading this book a few months ago and set it aside, solely because I wanted it to last. What a pleasure to start again from the beginning and wade through the deep grass of these poems: the whole book is a deft and probing meditation on boundaries, those we create and those that are imposed upon us. The self among neighbors, among strangers, among friends and colleagues and loved ones. Among weather and animals.

Liz has a keen attention to language: her way of honing in with exactitude sometimes slippery and hard-to-define moments reminds me of the poems of both Elizabeth Bishop and Robin Becker. I hear echoes of both masters in this wholly engaging collection.

"because each night something comes/ to take them away to the next place." (The Tenth Night)

"Water waits, finds a new way, bides/ its time like a well-aimed curse, even as it blesses us." (Water Cycle)

"One cleaving reveals the Sanskrit tunneling/ of the pine grub" (Splitting Firewood)

"The breathing of the ancient furnace stops/ mid-heave." (Outage)

"... the ants of my forgetfulness/ that chew through much of what I try to remember" (The House We Didn't Buy)

[J.S. Graustein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Liz Ahl's poetry is always beautifully crafted, but this collection in particular is a stunner. The strength of the collection lies in her ability to make even the most mundane aspects of New England life sparkle with a twist of humor or a quirky thought. I, like her, am from away. And I, like her, connect with the landscape and culture here in Northern New Hampshire. How perfect, then, that I found a collection of poems explaining the "why" of my fascination with my new home.

I can't recommend this book highly enough. Certainly a must-read for anyone who's lived in or visited the White Mountains or Lakes Region.

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

outside, the air thinks about april though we’re still knee-deep in march