Shimmer Report tells of a couple who do not fall in love so much as ascend together into love from their own dark places. He, a poet, musician, teacher; she, a visual artist and author, has also had to endure the psychiatric system. Life and love are but a shimmer—but this is a report on hard realities, as well as on flashes of colour, delight, and whimsy.

Years of suffering
like gas into flame
have drawn air
into your light—
a leaping, lambent figure
in mist, burning bright

“Shimmer Report is a book of searing honesty and shy grace. To read its poems becomes an act of witness as Brian Campbell explores his city and his heart, evoking the requirements of love as well as the vexed nuances of survival. I admire his courage.”
~ Mark Abley, author of The Tongues of Earth

“In Brian Campbell’s Shimmer Report, the poet asks, “What dilemma is this now?” Using urban, multi-language Montreal for a backdrop, and a palette of telling details in shades of wit and compassion, Campbell explores today’s creativity and relationships through echoes and upshots of complicated pasts. These are poems of love and survival—in spite of, and because of, the curiosities of the world we live in.”
~ Maxianne Berger, author of un renard roux/a red fox

Brian Campbell is the author of two previous poetry collections, Passenger Flight and Guatemala and Other Poems, as well as a chapbook, A Private Collection. Undressing The Night is his translation from Spanish of the selected poems of Nicaraguan-Canadian poet Francisco Santos. A finalist for the 2006 CBC Literary Award for Poetry, Campbell has published poetry, reviews, and essays in such literary journals as The New Quarterly The Antigonish Review, CV2, Grain, Prairie Fire, The Rover, Evergreen Review, Montreal Review of Books and The Saranac Review. Also a singer-songwriter, he has produced an independent music CD, The Courtier’s Manuscript. Originally from Toronto, Brian Campbell currently lives in Montreal. Visit his blog and website at www.briancampbell.ca.