Susan Campbell's Alaska-set debut poetry collection, This Far North, is steeped in science and nature, and it spins lessons of resilience from human and animal survival in extreme circumstances.
Fairbanks, Alaska, makes an ideal base for hiking and camping excursions--but the poet knows hers are tame compared to what she recounts in "The 1910 Sourdough Expedition: An Improbable Ascent of Denali." And that's nothing to the wonder of birds' long-distance migration: "We imagine the gods chuckling, the/ gauntlet they've slung tumbling across/ empty sand as bar-tailed godwits beat/ their way south to New Zealand, seven/ thousand miles without food, without rest." Campbell marvels at wolves, rivers, fungi, and the aurora borealis; she tracks the turning of the seasons as "The world weathers us--/ wind, water, sun, and rain." For the natural world, too, spring offers a reprieve from harsh winter. "Birches know about longing./ From October to May they wait./ Wait./ Wait for winter to relinquish its grip." The verse is rich in alliteration, assonance, and anaphora--in two pieces, every line or stanza begins with "When."
That keen awareness of the passing of time underpins poems about climate change, animal and human deaths, and the history of science (Isaac Newton's apple, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek's microscopy). Campbell also draws on her decades as an elementary school teacher, having learned as much from her students--Riley, raised in a trailer park; Burt, neglected by his parents--as they did from her. Acknowledging beauty alongside challenges, this inviting, down-to-earth work deserves a wide readership. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader, and blogger at Bookish Beck