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Poetry Canadian

Laws & Locks

by (author) Chad Campbell

Publisher
Vehicule Press
Initial publish date
Jul 2015
Category
Canadian
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781550654110
    Publish Date
    Jul 2015
    List Price
    $11.99
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781550654028
    Publish Date
    Apr 2015
    List Price
    $18.00

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Description

Beginning with the arrival of the Campbell clan in Canada in 1827— “pale Scot farmers fording the river, / seated backwards in refusal”—Laws & Locks tracks the history of one family’s struggle with depression, madness and mental illness. Chad Campbell’s first book of poetry is a brilliant investigation, at once dazzling and unflinching, into the way our predecessors bear on our choices in the present, and how present-day consequences extend backwards in time. A skilled, self-possessed and clear-eyed poet, Campbell has produced a work of art that, while not quite confessional, transforms the private, dark, often stigmatized regions of his life into powerful poetry. It is a bracing debut. “Come now to the burning forest / not burning anymore and feel / safe enough.”

About the author

Chad Campbell is the author of the award-nominated debut collection Laws & Locks (Signal Editions 2015). His poems have appeared in journals across the U.K. and Canada, and are anthologized in The Next Wave: An Anthology of 21st Century Canadian Poetry, The Best Canadian Poetry, and Carcanet New Poetries VIII. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, he lives in Manchester where he studies and teaches at the Centre for New Writing.

Chad Campbell's profile page