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Pris Campbell &
Scott Owens. The Nature of Attraction. Main Street Rag.
ISBN: 978-1-59948-256-9. Cover price: $7. This Limited Edition
chapbook is part of Main Street Rag's Author's Choice Chapbook
Series.
Available from
Main
Street Rag.
Author Biographies
Pris Campbell's
poetry has appeared in Chiron Review, The Main Street Rag,
Boxcar Poetry Review, Wild Goose Review and The Dead Mule
among others. She has two chapbooks and two poetry books to
her credit, the most recent being Sea Trails, published by
Lummox Press. She has received three Pushcart Prize
nominations. After living in places such as St. Louis,
Honolulu, Providence, and Boston, she makes her home in the
Greater West Palm Beach, FL. Formerly a Clinical
Psychologist, she was sidelined by ME/CFS in 1990.
Scott Owens is the author of 5 collections of poetry and has
published in numerous journals and anthologies. He is editor
of Wild Goose Poetry Review, Vice President of the Poetry
Council of North Carolina, and recipient of awards from the
Pushcart Prize Anthology, the Academy of American Poets, the
NC Writers' Network, the NC Poetry Society, and the Poetry
Society of SC. He holds an MFA from UNC Greensboro and
currently teaches at Catawba Valley Community College.
Read poems from
The Nature of Attraction
Commentary
When Scott Owens
pitched The Nature of Attraction to me, he presented
me with a dilemma. The Author's Select Chapbook Series was
designed to have authors for whom Main Street Rag had
already published books recommend other authors who would be
new to Main Street Rag. The dilemma was that Scott is also a
contributor to this collection. On the other hand, there
might not be a collection had Pris Campbell not read Scott's
poem "Norman's Enormous Thing" and been inspired by it
enough that she started her own series "Norman" poems. Thus
began a collaborative where Pris and Scott would exchange
poems and recommendations for poems and from that process,
The Nature of Attraction was born. Since I could not let
Scott recommend himself…
You hear multiple voices in The Nature of Attraction,
but not by contrast, more by the harmonic way these voices
mesh together, the way words and ideas fold together to form
an image, a phrase, a meaning that transcends an individual
thought and becomes something shared. That's how it is with
this collaboration between Pris Campbell and Scott Owens. In
these poems, a lifetime passes for Sara and Norman, a
lifetime of great joy and great sadness, of longing and
resignation that wanting isn't always enough. Throughout
this rollercoaster ride, it's hard to tell where Scott ends
and Pris begins and vice versa because the narrators' voice
remains steady. A challenging feat handled adeptly by two
very fine poets; an extremely worthwhile read.
M. Scott Douglass
Publisher/Editor
Main Street Rag
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