 Passenger Flight
AUTHOR: Brian Campbell In Passenger Flight, Brian Campbell takes us on a harrowing but exhilarating ride through the heavy turbulence of the twenty-first century. In this collection of free-wheeling, elegantly crafted prose poems, we lift off from a worldly kitchen, float through cafés, city streets and suburban malls until we find ourselves suspended over the star-like constellations of a brightly lit city. Along the way, we visit a swamp, a desert, a mountain, an abattoir, oil slicks, drag race strips, missile sites, suicide bombings and realms of total video surveillance in this post-911 world. Not to mention quiet enclaves of love-making, evocations of primordial nature, phantasmagorical dreams, and a collage of erotically suggestive magazine pictures. Stories are told, cosmologies formed and smashed, until we discover the underlying affirmation that makes the whole trip worth it. At times, the rules of physics are turned upside down. At other times, it is sheer, laughable absurdity. At still other times, the flight path is so intense that the language becomes luminous and incantatory. Throughout the journey, Campbell deftly guides us in "the huge luge" of his craft – the imaginative flight itself.
REVIEWS: "Urbane, captivating, Brian Campbell’s images are as vertical as the city he describes and the sky overhead. Often blackly humorous, he records the frustrations and celebrations of ordinary living, juxtaposed to a time-space immensity which can only overwhelm and defeat. For Brian Campbell this overriding theme of transience and frailty is positive as well as scary. Standing grounded in his craft and his humanity, he can still startle in wonder, and his words open and lift the heart." — Heather Spears "In this gem
of a collection, Brian Campbell uses every device available within the
poet’s armamentarium—except the line break. This allows Campbell’s
somewhat eccentric persona to speak with manic breathlessness as his 'one
open eye' explores the 'flexuous' possibilities of the imagination. 'The
mind fills a void. It does fill. Have faith.'"
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