What do you think?
Rate this book
The Nature of Attraction
43 pages, Library Binding
First published July 25, 2010
1 person want to read
About the author
Pris Campbell
28 books14 followersIf I don't know you or if we don't have several friends in common, please send me a message along with your friend request.
Among other journals and collected works, my poetry has appeared (or will soon appear) in Boxcar Poetry Review, Mipo publications (print, digital, radio), Poems Niederngasse, Empowerment4Women,Cliffs: Soundings, Main Street Rag, Chiron Review, Wild Goose Review and The Dead Mule. I was featured poet in In The Fray and Empowerment4Women in 2008, and in From East to West, winter 2009. I also was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2008 and two in 2009. I also wite short forms and have been published in many journals and anthologies.
My most recent collection of poetry is Truth and Other Lies, 2022, before thar, My Southern Childhood, 2020…, released in 2017 is When The Wolves Are At The Door Hang On, with Michael Parker, and earlier, Shadows Trail Them Home with Scott Owens, Postscripts to the Dead, by MiPOEsias Publications and is available on MagCloud (PDF version is free). The Nature of Attraction, with Scott Owens, was released by Main Street Rag July 2010. Before it, in 2009, Lumox Press published Sea Trails, a book of poems/log notes/charts/photos based on my 1977 trip in a 22 foot sailboat. Lummox also published my third chapbook, Hesitant Commitments as part of its Little Red Book series in 2008. These two are out of print but I have a few personal copies. Copies of Abrasions, my first chapbook, are still available. Contact me at campris@bellsouth.net
I also publish haiga, tanka and haiku quite extensively. Squalls On The Horizon, published by Nixes Mate, a book of tanka, will be available March 15, 2017,
A Clinical Psychologist by profession, I've lived in the Midwest, Hawaii, New England (primarily Boston, where three years were spent in a commune). I moved to Florida where I now live via a six month meandering trip in my 22 foot sailboat with a companion. I'm married. No kids. Two pets. Glad I did things important to me when I could, since ME/CFS took me to the mat in 1990. Don't say 'I'll do it when I retire'. That opportunity may not come again.
Among other journals and collected works, my poetry has appeared (or will soon appear) in Boxcar Poetry Review, Mipo publications (print, digital, radio), Poems Niederngasse, Empowerment4Women,Cliffs: Soundings, Main Street Rag, Chiron Review, Wild Goose Review and The Dead Mule. I was featured poet in In The Fray and Empowerment4Women in 2008, and in From East to West, winter 2009. I also was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2008 and two in 2009. I also wite short forms and have been published in many journals and anthologies.
My most recent collection of poetry is Truth and Other Lies, 2022, before thar, My Southern Childhood, 2020…, released in 2017 is When The Wolves Are At The Door Hang On, with Michael Parker, and earlier, Shadows Trail Them Home with Scott Owens, Postscripts to the Dead, by MiPOEsias Publications and is available on MagCloud (PDF version is free). The Nature of Attraction, with Scott Owens, was released by Main Street Rag July 2010. Before it, in 2009, Lumox Press published Sea Trails, a book of poems/log notes/charts/photos based on my 1977 trip in a 22 foot sailboat. Lummox also published my third chapbook, Hesitant Commitments as part of its Little Red Book series in 2008. These two are out of print but I have a few personal copies. Copies of Abrasions, my first chapbook, are still available. Contact me at campris@bellsouth.net
I also publish haiga, tanka and haiku quite extensively. Squalls On The Horizon, published by Nixes Mate, a book of tanka, will be available March 15, 2017,
A Clinical Psychologist by profession, I've lived in the Midwest, Hawaii, New England (primarily Boston, where three years were spent in a commune). I moved to Florida where I now live via a six month meandering trip in my 22 foot sailboat with a companion. I'm married. No kids. Two pets. Glad I did things important to me when I could, since ME/CFS took me to the mat in 1990. Don't say 'I'll do it when I retire'. That opportunity may not come again.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 4, 2011
A Zenith of Poetic Collaboration
Pris Campbell and Scott Owens are individually two very talented poets whose works stand alone with the best of them: put them together in the manner that this collaboration defines and they are progenitors!
THE NATURE OF ATTRACTION is at once a coming together of a man and a woman – here named Norman and Sara – by physical attraction, by gesture, by suggestion, by private needs of solitary individuals that through the progress of this book become one, discovering each other’s needs and servicing those needs and yet never becoming symbiotic. How this happens in the form of poems makes extraordinary reading and provides insight into the nature of the individual placed in context with the formation of a bonding.
It is unclear which poet is writing in which voice: it is easy to assume that Pris Campbell is writing the thoughts and words and responses of Sara while Scott Owens writes the voice and character of Norman. But as the poems progress there is a synthesis of sort that makes us wonder if they haven’t switched roles, so well defined are the slowly unraveled needs of the other made evident.
Sara is a physical being with needs she has never lacked for fulfillment in her past. Norman is less aggressive, more vulnerable, less a practiced artist of lovemaking. They meet, discover each other:
SARA DISCOVERS NORMAN
Sara is flash lightning,
a loose wire,
her current not quite
touching ground.
She got a tattoo once,
pierced her belly button,
sewed roses all over her
size six baggy jeans.
She wishes she’d known Janis Joplin, Martin Luther King,
and the Chicago Seven; she admires
people who walk outside circling wagons.
She’s attracted to Norman.
In his Land’s End pressed slacks
and tailored shirts, he almost
blends in, but his shoes
are as scuffed as hers.
So much is said about each of these disparate people in this brief poem that we can feel the potential bumps in the road of their romance. But first the two come together and a relationship of passion is erotically felt be each – for us, the reader as voyeur. But as the relationship progresses interference raises its head: Sara never wanted children- Sara gets pregnant –a baby is born and Sara’s feelings change – Norman attempts to adapt but treats the child like he treats other distractions form his attention to obsessive details. They part – Sara with child, Norman watching form a distance missing the physical gratification of Sara before pregnancy, Sara accepting with joy the unexpected pleasures of mothering.
LOVING NORMAN
Is impossible./ He knows. He’s tried/for years/hand stroking/his many ego,/squeezing the bloated/throat. Oh, he looks good/enough on the surface,/ hair combed/across the thinning/ spots on top,/ teeth white/ but somewhat bent,/ cheap slacks pressed,/ shirt immaculately clean/ though a little damp./ Myrtle Beach Lothario/ slightly out of season,/ voice too loud,/ sugar too high,/ patience all but gone./ In his younger days/ he tried hard/ to earn the love/ of at least one/ warm body/ beside him,/ held his temper/ in check/spoke/ only in whispers,/ only sweet words, tried/ to be sensitive,/vulnerable, think/ of others first./ He thought/if he could love/ another, they might/ love him in return,/ but if his own father/ couldn’t do it,/ if he, himself,/ can’t do it,/ what hope/ did anyone else have?
Two brief poems form a book of emotionally rich and energetic poetry. There is lightness (a section in which Norman’s physical major endowment is viewed by each!), there are occult psychological reasons for each other’s responses, and there is so much more packed tersely into this story shared by people we long to know. It is a major accomplishment, this collaboration, and these are two gifted poets able to step out of their individual paths to create something refreshingly new and alive. THE NATURE OF ATTRACTION is brilliant! Grady Harp, August 11
Pris Campbell and Scott Owens are individually two very talented poets whose works stand alone with the best of them: put them together in the manner that this collaboration defines and they are progenitors!
THE NATURE OF ATTRACTION is at once a coming together of a man and a woman – here named Norman and Sara – by physical attraction, by gesture, by suggestion, by private needs of solitary individuals that through the progress of this book become one, discovering each other’s needs and servicing those needs and yet never becoming symbiotic. How this happens in the form of poems makes extraordinary reading and provides insight into the nature of the individual placed in context with the formation of a bonding.
It is unclear which poet is writing in which voice: it is easy to assume that Pris Campbell is writing the thoughts and words and responses of Sara while Scott Owens writes the voice and character of Norman. But as the poems progress there is a synthesis of sort that makes us wonder if they haven’t switched roles, so well defined are the slowly unraveled needs of the other made evident.
Sara is a physical being with needs she has never lacked for fulfillment in her past. Norman is less aggressive, more vulnerable, less a practiced artist of lovemaking. They meet, discover each other:
SARA DISCOVERS NORMAN
Sara is flash lightning,
a loose wire,
her current not quite
touching ground.
She got a tattoo once,
pierced her belly button,
sewed roses all over her
size six baggy jeans.
She wishes she’d known Janis Joplin, Martin Luther King,
and the Chicago Seven; she admires
people who walk outside circling wagons.
She’s attracted to Norman.
In his Land’s End pressed slacks
and tailored shirts, he almost
blends in, but his shoes
are as scuffed as hers.
So much is said about each of these disparate people in this brief poem that we can feel the potential bumps in the road of their romance. But first the two come together and a relationship of passion is erotically felt be each – for us, the reader as voyeur. But as the relationship progresses interference raises its head: Sara never wanted children- Sara gets pregnant –a baby is born and Sara’s feelings change – Norman attempts to adapt but treats the child like he treats other distractions form his attention to obsessive details. They part – Sara with child, Norman watching form a distance missing the physical gratification of Sara before pregnancy, Sara accepting with joy the unexpected pleasures of mothering.
LOVING NORMAN
Is impossible./ He knows. He’s tried/for years/hand stroking/his many ego,/squeezing the bloated/throat. Oh, he looks good/enough on the surface,/ hair combed/across the thinning/ spots on top,/ teeth white/ but somewhat bent,/ cheap slacks pressed,/ shirt immaculately clean/ though a little damp./ Myrtle Beach Lothario/ slightly out of season,/ voice too loud,/ sugar too high,/ patience all but gone./ In his younger days/ he tried hard/ to earn the love/ of at least one/ warm body/ beside him,/ held his temper/ in check/spoke/ only in whispers,/ only sweet words, tried/ to be sensitive,/vulnerable, think/ of others first./ He thought/if he could love/ another, they might/ love him in return,/ but if his own father/ couldn’t do it,/ if he, himself,/ can’t do it,/ what hope/ did anyone else have?
Two brief poems form a book of emotionally rich and energetic poetry. There is lightness (a section in which Norman’s physical major endowment is viewed by each!), there are occult psychological reasons for each other’s responses, and there is so much more packed tersely into this story shared by people we long to know. It is a major accomplishment, this collaboration, and these are two gifted poets able to step out of their individual paths to create something refreshingly new and alive. THE NATURE OF ATTRACTION is brilliant! Grady Harp, August 11
September 2, 2010
Pris Campbell and Scott Owens
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 moaning 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 of great joy and great sadness, of longing and resignation that wanting isn't always enough. Throughout this roller-coaster ride it's hard to tell where Scott ends and Pris begins and vice versa because the narrator's voice remains steady. A challenging feat handled adeptly by two very fine poets; an extremely worth while read.
by Scott Douglass
Author's Choice Chapbook Series
Main Street Rag
Purchase at http://www.mainstreetrag.com for seven dollars plus shipping.
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 moaning 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 of great joy and great sadness, of longing and resignation that wanting isn't always enough. Throughout this roller-coaster ride it's hard to tell where Scott ends and Pris begins and vice versa because the narrator's voice remains steady. A challenging feat handled adeptly by two very fine poets; an extremely worth while read.
by Scott Douglass
Author's Choice Chapbook Series
Main Street Rag
Purchase at http://www.mainstreetrag.com for seven dollars plus shipping.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews