Talking Dirt by Jeff Campbell

Talking Dirt by Jeff Campbell

Traditional poetry continues to hold its place in contemporary literature, in part, because of the emergence of women whose writing is informed by tradition but whose subject matter crystalizes in the personal search for meaning. This work represents a search through life, querying events and ideas. Thoughts are offered and ideas considered, but no real conclusion is reached as life s constant flux shifts the perspective and importance of every event. Everyday moments and seemingly inconsequential acts are allowed their due while peace and strength show through the loss and effort.

In the backdrop to the poems, the boreal forest comes alive, poems begin there:
I spent the entire day walking poplar brush and spruce groves
stretched out for a bit in waist-high grass in the meadow beyond the birches
worked my slow way beneath the willows where beaver wore a path
through stones that rim the slough next to Little Winter Lake

And poems end there:

young throats yip
coyote pups on the ridge
beckon the moon as feet slap boards
stretched to the drowning sun
leap into rippled silver

The forest, the woman, and poem share the work for meaning in these poems and this is what creates their beauty as much as the carefully chosen words that convey it.