J o h n R. C a m p b e l l
John R. Campbell is a writer, musician, & visual artist at the nexus of landscape, poetics, sound, philosophy, and cultural criticism. His poems and essays have appeared widely in national and international literary journals. He has taught writing and cultural studies at the University of Lisbon, Portugal, The University of Utah, and Oregon State University. His music explores landscape and Buddhist philosophy via post-jazz, new roots, and contemplative textures. It can be found at Bandcamp. His images involve abstract landscapes and place figurative gestures amid intricate, layered environments. They are featured at OCELLI.
Intimate Distance is a rich and nuanced immersion in the landscapes of the American West. It’s also an exploration and deep critique of cultural constructions of nature, estrangement, maleness, and loss. Gregory Orr has written: “With a deft intensity and an unerring ear, John R. Campbell probes at the mystery of things, insisting that the density of experience yield secrets that will sustain us.”
Trance and neo-primitive guitar in a setting of object-generated sound.
Free jazz piano sojourns into the theme of not knowing.
Alt-chamber music performed by ensemble when.
Mountains Drawn By Memory, a novella, describes the last two years in the life of Robere Merleau, a California figurative and landscape painter. After a prologue set in the Himalaya, the story takes place in California and Wyoming, as Robere searches for connection with loved ones, his past, and the land. Robere meets Lorenza, a strong and enigmatic woman who matches his intensity, and he renews his relationship with his estranged daughter, Claire. Throughout, the consciousness of an artist unfolds, revealing the intricacies of landscape and loss.
"Absence and Light is at once a heartfelt, poetic work of nature writing and an eloquent discourse about how humankind must rethink certain beliefs in order to slow the Earth's destruction." —The Oregonian
"In the best tradition of natural history writing, [Campbell’s] powers of description are marvelous.... A book of great spirit, both poignant and full of life." —The Bloomsbury Review
"A collection of meditations that can be read as might any poetry collection gathered under one theme: as a whole, in related sections, or as individual pieces. The prose is careful, beautifully descriptive, and thoroughly engaging." —The Georgia Review
“Absence and Light is a pioneering book in the way that Walden is. It has the same virtues of transgressive integrity and worshipful irreverence, and it takes literature into a ‘place no one knew’ by integrating poetry, philosophy, and natural history. John R. Campbell should be required reading for anyone who thinks about the landscape.” —David Rains Wallace
environmental meditations
THE IMAGE OF THE FISH:
Consciousness, Self, and Landscape
Traveling the American West, the poet sees the land as a deep source for cultural critique. The texts etch meaning at the nexus of natural history, poetic sensibility, and philosophical concern. Dead West is a collage, a survey, a map. It's external and internal. It documents land and mind.
Dead West is a series of philosophical meditations on environmental aesthetics, ethics, and poetics. Each meditation is set in a specific site in the American West.
Dead West was written with help from an Individual Artist Grant, Utah Arts Council/National Endowment for the Arts. The completed manuscript was awarded First Place, Utah Original Writing Competition, Utah Arts Council, in nonfiction.
DEAD WEST:
AN EXISTENTIAL ROADTRIP
In The Mouth of the Western Earth
A long-form trilogy that treats the poet's experience in the American West from 1980--present. These excerpts are from Part I, "The Far West," set in northern California and in Oregon.
Part II (completed) is "Interior Mountains," set in Utah and Wyoming, and Part III “Sleeping on the Ground” (in progress) returns to Oregon.
