John R. Campbell
campbelj@mail.wou.edu johnrobertcampbell.com
Teaching
Writing Instructor, Western Oregon University January 2008—present
Fulbright Fellow/Professor, University of Lisbon, Portugal September—December 2014
Visiting Assistant Professor/Instructor, University of Utah August, 1998–May, 2007
Instructor, Oregon State University March, 1989–June, 1993
Courses taught:
- College Writing II (WR 135 )
- College Writing I (WR 115)
- Composition (WR 121)
- Research Composition (WR 222)
- Academic Writing and Research (WRTG 2010)
- Writing in a Research University (WRTG 3200)
- Cultural Foundations in Nature, Ecology, and Environmentalism (ENGL 5920)
- Imaging the American West (American Studies)
- Honors Seminar in Environmental Cultural Criticism (WR407H)
- Environmental Writing (WR 362)
- Advanced Creative Nonfiction Workshop (ENGL 5530)
- Nonfiction Environmental Writing (WRTG 4080/6080)
- Honors Intellectual Traditions (Nature/Culture) (HON 2102)
- Writing in Honors (HON 2211)
- Studies in Environmental Literature (ENGL 2080)
- Individual Graduate Student Supervision, Environmental Literature (ENGL 5020)
- Nature Writing (ENGL 2070)
- Advanced Expository Writing (ENGL 3610)
- Creative Writing, Poetry (WR 241)
- Creative Writing, Fiction (WR 224)
- American Dreams: Twentieth Century Studies (TCS 201)
- Intellectual Traditions of the West, Renaissance to Present (HUM 1020)
Education
MFA (terminal), Creative Writing, University of Oregon, 1988
Teaching Certificate, English Education, University of California at Davis, 1984
BA, English, Northern Illinois University, 1981
Selected Publications
Novel: Mountains Drawn by Memory (Ephemera West Books 2013)
Nonfiction Book: Absence and Light: Meditations from the Klamath Marshes (University of Nevada Press, 2002)
Essays and Poems:
Flyway: Journal of Writing and Environment (Iowa State University) “Stories Moving Through” forthcoming 2016
Forest Under Story: A Decade of Creative Inquiry in an Old-Growth Forest (Anthology, University of Washington Press) “Scope: Ten Small Essays” February 2016
Wild in the Willamette (Oregon State University Press) “Vision Begins: On Dixon Creek” November, 2015
Anglo Saxonica (University of Lisbon, Portugal) “Hiking the Canyon Country: Towards an Epistemology of Nature” September, 2015
Forma De Vida (Programa Em Teoria Da Literatura, University of Lisbon, Portugal) “Stratified Poem” June 2015
Natural in Verso (Centro de Estudos Anglísticos, University of Lisbon, Portugal) “Sweat and Grit in My Actual Eyes” April, 2015
Terrain: A Journal of the Natural and Built Environments “At the Mall” October, 2012
Basalt (Eastern Oregon University) “Ancestry: An Account” and “Blues: Call and Response” August, 2012
Oregon Quarterly “The Song in Front of You” May, 2011
Shaking Like A Mountain “1958” October, 2010, reprinted in Shaking Intensified: Best Prose 2007-2010
Terrain: A Journal of the Natural and Built Environments “Scope” October, 2010
Oregon Humanities “Goat” Summer, 2009
Isotope: A Journal of Literary Nature and Science Writing “Prometheus at Yellowstone” Winter, 2008
The Threepenny Review “Elements of the Blues” Fall, 2000
The Georgia Review “A Secret Iridescence” Summer, 1997
The North American Review “Absence and Light” January/February, 1997
Sewanee Review (The University of the South)”The Aesthetics of the Hunt”; “The Landscape Painter”; “Style” December, 1997
Northwest Review “On a Poetics of Privacy” September, 1993
Poetry (Chicago) “Pastoral”; “Pornography” February, 1993
Seattle Review (University of Washington) “Elegy for My Mother” November, 1992
Northwest Review (University of Oregon) “Delusion”; “Notes Toward a Wild Domesticity”; “John O’ The Woods”; “Misreading Anna Akhmatova”, June, 1992
Poetry East (DePaul University) “Sulphur”; “Prince Charles Lectures the Public on Architectural Integrrity” June, 1992
Northwest Review (University of Oregon) “The Poetic Moment”; “Learning to Ski”; “A Speech to the Calm and Formal” 1991
Three Rivers Poetry Journal (Carnegie Mellon University) “Geese”; “Forgiveness” 1990
Selected Presentations, Readings, & Activities
Forest Under Story: A Decade of Creative Inquiry in an Old-Growth Forest (University of Washington Press) book launch reading, Corvallis, Oregon, March 2016
Wild in The Willamette (Oregon State University Press) book launch reading, Corvallis, Oregon, November, 2015
Writing Workshop “Working and Writing the Woods” conducted at The Cabin at Shotpouch Creek for the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature, and the Written Word, Dept. of Philosophy, Oregon State University October 2015
Poetry reading: Centro de Estudos Anglísticos, University of Lisbon, December 2014
Poetry reading: Programa Em Teoria Da Literatura, University of Lisbon, November 2014
Spoken word performance, The Outset Music Series, Portland, Oregon, January 2014
Spoken word performance, The Waypost, Portland, Oregon, March, 2013
Poetry Reading for basalt magazine at Literary Arts, Portland, Oregon, September, 2012
Poetry featured in Avian Art, literary and visual art exhibit, Hamersly Library, Western Oregon University, Spring 2011
Reading: “Scope”, with original projected images, Corvallis Arts Center, as part of the Between the Cracks series, Oregon State University School of Music, Fall, 2010
Presentation, Dead West. Associated Writing Program Conference, Austin, Texas, March, 2006
Member, Steering Committee, Environmental Humanities Masters of Arts Program, University of Utah, appointed by the Dean of the College of Humanities, August, 2004 to August, 2005
Guest lecturer, Environmental Studies Program, ENVST 2100, University of Utah, September 2004; January 2005; October, 2005
Paper, “Absence and Light” accepted for presentation at ASLE (Association for the Study of Literature and Environment) conference, University of Oregon, June, 2005
“A Survey of Eden: Here It Is” The Landscape and Environment panel for Memory, Material, and Meaning: The Conference of the Western Humanities Alliance, University of Utah, October, 2003
Paper: “The Aesthetics of Environmental Restoration” Featured Speaker, at the Joint Conference of the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board and the Oregon Association of Conservation Districts, Redmond, Oregon, November 2002
Reading and panel discussion on environmental issues at The Great Basin Book Festival, Reno, Nevada, sponsored by the Nevada Humanities Committee, September, 2002
Reading at The Great Salt Lake Book Festival, in celebration of The International Year of the Mountains, sponsored by the Utah Humanities Council, September, 2002
“Visual Idealism in the American West” presented at The North American Interdisciplinary Conference on Environment and Community, Weber State University, March 2002
Earth Day Reading, with Terry Tempest Williams, Student Union, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, April, 2002
Reading of “Absence and Light” at the Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources, and the Environment, S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah, January, 2002
Reading, “Absence and Light” at Powell’s Books, Portland, Oregon, September, 1998
Writers Exchange Reading, sponsored by Poets and Writers and The Poetry Society of America, National Arts Club, New York, New York, October 1997
Literary Readings: Windfall Reading Series, Lane Literary Guild, Eugene, Oregon, January 1997, February, 1995
Poem “River Questions” reprinted in Let Us Drink to the River: An Anthology of River Poems, The Willamette River Education Project, Corvallis, Oregon, 1997; also reprinted in Willamette River Basin Task Force Recommendations to Governor John Kitzhaber, December, 1997
One of thirty-six writers nationwide chosen for the first Art of the Wild program, Squaw Valley, California, August, 1992
Awards, Fellowships, Service
Fulbright Teaching Award, University of Lisbon, Portugal, September, 2014
Andrews Forest Writer In Residence, Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature, and the Written Word, Dept. of Philosophy, Oregon State University, Spring 2010
First Place, Utah Original Writing Competition, Utah Arts Council, Poetry, 2004
First Place, Utah Original Writing Competition, Utah Arts Council, Nonfiction, 2002
Individual Artist Grant, Utah Arts Council/National Endowment for the Arts, 2001, Creative Nonfiction.
Chosen, by Poets and Writers, as the poetry winner for the 1997 Writers Exchange. Reading at the National Arts Club, New York City.
Member, of the University of Oregon Humanities Center Board of Visitors, 1993–1997.
Coordinated the Oregon Humanities Center Reading Series, which featured an array of accomplished writers, 1993–1995.
Selected by Galway Kinnell to participate in the Squaw Valley Community of Writers Poetry Program, July, 1991.
Awarded Research Fellowship at the Oregon Humanities Center, June, 1990, University of Oregon.
Lectures: University of Utah School of Medicine
(Presented for the University of Utah School of Medicine, Division of Medical Ethics)
“Idleness and Old Age: The Late Poems of Po Chu-I” November 2003
“The Wisdom of Illness: The Poetry of Floyd Skloot” April, 2003
“Brain Imaging and the Mind/Body Split” March, 2003
“Basho’s Death Journey: The Narrow Road to the Deep North” February, 2003
“On Suffering: Chuang Tzu and The Book of Job” April, 2002
“Inhabiting the Physical as a Form of Praise: The Poetry of Denise Levertov” March, 2002
“Anna Swir’s Talking To My Body ” January, 2001
Editing
Assistant Poetry Editor, Northwest Review, 1986—1989
Co-Editor, Crowdancing, 1983–1989. Small press magazine specializing in nature themes and Native American writing.
Reviews & Commentary on Absence and Light and my poetry:
David Rains Wallace (author of fourteen books, including The Klamath Knot, and winner of the Burroughs Medal for nature writing): “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 innovatively integrating poetry, philosophy, and natural history. John R. Campbell. . .should be required reading for anyone who thinks about the landscape.”
Douglas Carlson in The Georgia Review, Winter, 2005: “The prose is careful, beautifully descriptive, and thoroughly engaging.…The book moves easily within the possibilities Campbell has set for himself, always aware of presenting his landscape as a process to his audience—sharing, showing, and enabling. Campbell’s awareness of the natural world as process allows him to abandon the usually stationary eye of the speaker so as to observe the unseen, to capture nuance, to enter and exit at will.”
Sarah Gianelli, in The Sunday Oregonian (Portland): “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 Earth’s destruction…. For Campbell, the beauty of the marshes is a vehicle that takes him deep within. Not only does he delve fearlessly into issues of an ‘incomprehensible scope,’ but he never loses sight of the reader, from the first glimpse of the heron. . .through the complex annals of thought the image inspires.”
Lori D. Kranz, in The Bloomsbury Review: “In the best tradition of natural history writing, his powers of description are marvelous. . . Campbell sees in the American West a ‘poignant ground for unfathomable pockets of life, whether they be desert marshes, itinerant birds, or frail and terrible human bodies.’ His Absence and Light is a book of great spirit, both poignant and full of life.”
Scott Slovic (University of Nevada, Reno), the noted expert on Literature and the Environment, described Absence and Light as “offering a rare mixture of lyricism and philosophical vigor” and “exploring an extraordinary range of topics, from the concept of borders to the meaning of animals in the lives of human beings, working with short, exploratory essays . . . like musical riffs. This is a gem of a manuscript.”
Greg Orr (University of Virginia), in selecting the winner of the 1997 Poets and Writers/Writers Exchange Award, wrote that “John R. Campbell sees with equal precision of eyes, intelligence and tongue, so that together they braid phrases whose urgency reminds us that Coleridge insisted poetry involve not merely pleasure at final arrival, but maximum pleasure in the word-journey itself. Though his poems are anchored in the physical world, in concrete situations, they nevertheless unhesitatingly quest for further revelations and connections. With a deft intensity and an unerring ear, he probes at the mystery of things, insisting that the density of existence yield secrets that will sustain us.”