I’ve been ignoring this web site for a while — spreading most of my news and events on Facebook — but updating it recently, I thought, well, this news page could be a useful record. So that’s what I’ll use it for, while my blog, Out of the Woodwork, which years ago was extremely active, will serve for entries of occasional reflections.
Author Archives: Brian
VASE, a video poem
VASE from Brian Campbell on Vimeo.
A video montage of “Vase”, a poem from Shimmer Report.
SHIMMER REPORT Toronto Launch
Friday, June 17, 2016, 8:00 pm – 10:00 pm
The Westin Harbour Castle, Toronto, 1 Harbour Square, Toronto. Chartroom Bar and Lounge, just off the main lobby.
An informal reading and launch of Shimmer Report; open mike. Event taking place alongside the Canadian Writers’ Summit. Hope to see you there!
Shimmer Report book launch @ The Word Bookstore
Early in the evening; people (J-P Pelletier & Hugh Hazelton) still coming in the door
Adrian King-Edwards, owner of the Word & Moi
Cathy Watt, Hope Diario, John Markle — friends, fans, fellow bodhisattvas of the earth!
Adrian & Wanda Potrykus
Jean-Pierre Pelletier & moi
Jan Jorgenson & her husband, Ted
Maxianne Berger & J-P Pelletier
Cora Siré & Moi
About forty guests came to this launch at The Word, a storied, steadfast brick-and-mortar bookstore in the McGill Ghetto. Thanks Adrian and Donna for your enthusiasm in hosting the event and arranging the food & drinks, to all of you who attended! It was a great evening!
SHIMMER REPORT
The Ekstasis Editions catalogue is now online, with Shimmer Report in it. The launch is scheduled for Aug. 27 in Victoria B.C. (details TBA), but you can order in advance here.
Here’s the text on the back of the book:
Shimmer Report tells of a couple who do not fall in love so much as ascend together into love from their own dark places. He, a poet, musician, teacher; she, a visual artist and author, has also had to endure the psychiatric system. Life and love are but a shimmer—but this is a report on hard realities, as well as on flashes of colour, delight, and whimsy.
Years of suffering
like gas into flame
have drawn air
into your light—
a leaping, lambent figure
in mist, burning bright“Shimmer Report is a book of searing honesty and shy grace. To read its poems becomes an act of witness as Brian Campbell explores his city and his heart, evoking the requirements of love as well as the vexed nuances of survival. I admire his courage.”
~ Mark Abley, author of The Tongues of Earth
“In Brian Campbell’s Shimmer Report, the poet asks, “What dilemma is this now?” Using urban, multi-language Montreal for a backdrop, and a palette of telling details in shades of wit and compassion, Campbell explores today’s creativity and relationships through echoes and upshots of complicated pasts. These are poems of love and survival—in spite of, and because of, the curiosities of the world we live in.”
~ Maxianne Berger, author of un renard roux/a red fox
Brian Campbell 