About the Book:

Bucolic and brutal, Farmstead, Fire, Field moves us through landscapes of farmland and longing. These poems explore the complexity of the rural with keen observation and gorgeous images: sugar maples trickling “in unison / from metal taps, sap boiling / off as honeyed vapor,” the barns and houses all painted the same “cheap red, / because, of all things, it is rust / and blood that are plentiful.” Campbell’s collection moves beyond these quiet fields and into the tough honesty of universal human feeling, where sometimes the most tender act is not so straightforward, as in “Juvenilia,” with a speaker who is fearful of crayfish, and a girl who “maimed one crayfish / just so I could hold it.” —Lisa Mangini

With sonic precision and an ear for the cacophony within his speaker, Duncan Campbell investigates family origins, small town myths, the ghosts we hunt and the ghosts we flee. Trapped in tradition and breeding a restless youth, the community Campbell’s poetry surveys flourishes with wildlife, detail, and nuance. These poems hum with history and, whether filled with desperate energy or repose, come to life through stunning and original imagery. In Farmstead, Fire, Field Campbell writes “The doorway / is small, but you could always / lean in.” This is a book to lean into. —Heather Cox