In the Night Field

Cameron McGill's debut collection of poetry, In the Night Field, spotlights the effects of memory: its startling artistry, varied discontents, and casual fallibility. These poems chart the complex relationship between mental health and place; the difficult paths home can be lonely and circuitous, the emotional coordinates we map along the way a reminder of those intimate regions that hold and haunt us. These can be isolating passages, but are just as often fertile: "I walk further each day toward the strange / austerity my heart makes of reason." Between the attentive, persistent self and the longed-for, absent other arises a fragmented conversation, an exchange that's in a constant state of arrival. As McGill shows us, memories are a corrective, carrying back to us occasions for instruction, reconciliation, or in those astonishing flashes of clarity, what again hopes to be loved.

About the Author
McGill, Cameron: - Cameron McGill is a poet and songwriter from Champaign, Illinois and the author of Meridians (Willow Springs Books). His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Grist, Raleigh Review, RHINO, and Western Humanities Review. He has released seven albums, most recently The Widow Cameron. He teaches at Washington State University, where he serves as co- director of the Visiting Writers Series. He lives in Moscow, Idaho.