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.