I ❤️ Mary B. Campbell

Funny. Yesterday I had no idea who Mary B. Campbell was. Today, I'm sending one of her poems ("Impressionism") to several different friends because it has filled my soul to the bursting point, and if I don't let some of it out I might explode. And P.S., I ❤️ her.

This book of poems, which I was lucky enough to find at my local library...and which you can find online for about $6...(unless I beat you to it, as I've decided I need to own this book) is just packed with words that twitch like severed electric cables. 

Usually...well, ALways except for Bukowski...I don't get much in a first reading of a poem. I slip slide across its frozen surface and end up on my ass, wondering what happened. And I lose my desire to continue reading after three or four of these pratfalls. Sometimes I go back for another look and find rewards, but I have to admit that a lot of the time I just put those poems aside and then slowly allow myself to forget about them.

With Mary B. Campbell's book, I started in the middle, liked what I read, and worked my way up to the front / first page. And then wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, I began to re-read the poems in the proper order. And they pulled me straight through the middle of the book and then beyond my starting point. 

In fact, even before I'd finished the book I was searching for more Mary B. Campbell. It was a hard search. 

There's The Business of Being Alive: Selected Poems...which you can find online at Internet Archive. There are also some hard copies you can buy (ebay, Abebooks), but they list for around 30 bucks, which is pretty pricey for an 81 page book. (That doesn't mean I won't go for it, though, so caveat emptor.)

And there's Trouble (Carnegie Mellon Poetry) which can be had from Amazon and Alibris.

But that seems to be it so far as poetry is concerned.

Bummer...because I really, really love these poems.

These poems are filled with lines that grab onto my mind like burrs...like this from "The Poetry of Empire":

...which I think perfectly sums up President Donald J. Trump.

But enough for now. I want to finish off this book now.

Henry Fuseli’s 1794 painting, “Milton Dictating to His Daughter”
Public Domain

P.S. Oddly enough (since it was so recent), I can't remember how I ran across Mary B. Campbell. I've gone through my search history looking for clues, but have come up empty. I'd been searching for poetry by L.R. Berger, and I suspect that that search brought Mary B. into my field of vision...let's see...AH!

Mystery solved. When I read that blurb and saw the title The World, the Flesh, and Angels, I felt compelled to scurry down that path. 

Dominoes.