Passenger Flight

In Passenger Flight, Brian Campbell takes us on a harrowing but exhilarating ride through the heavy turbulence of the twenty-first century. This collection of free-wheeling, elegantly crafted prose poems lifts us off from a worldly kitchen, taking us on a journey 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-9/11 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.