A Dragon Swallowed the Bear

A Dragon Swallowed the Bear: Six Stories by Jeremy Campbell

There is violence here. There are monsters and fire, open veins and desperate loves, edges sharp and blunt, animals that appear and fade like melting snow. Jeremy Campbell's stories are neither fables nor fairy tales, and to describe them is to deal in paradox. They are focused, distinct, but they bleed, and when you finish reading you will find traces of their worlds all around you. Yes, there is violence here, both regrettable and regenerative. There is compassion. Creation. Death. And the sigh of resignation which is the breath of life itself.

Look down. Your belly has been unzipped.

Fiction, 23 pp. Click here to download PDF.

Jeremy Campbell was born in Michigan. He lived there and probably somewhere else, too. He studied English Literature at Michigan State University and a few years after that someone took this photo of him in a parking lot. The ground was wet. The suit Jeremy was wearing looked like it was his, but it wasn't. The suit was really good at pretending.

Where can I get more?

Happy New Year!

We're busy working on our next few chapbooks, but while we're working, you can keep up with Revelator writers through their blogs.

• I read that somewhere—Michael Duncan, author of Line Jester and Other Stories: A 21st Century take on the common reader—quotes from literature and contemporary writers. (Meg Sparling and Gavin Craig also contribute)


• nights best unspoken—Andrew Hungerford, author of Between the Water and the Air: A livejournal on Hungerford's work in the theater.


• A nothing day full of/ wild beauty—Angela Vasquez-Giroux, author of Letters to My Sister: The musings of a poet, mother, and Detroit Tigers fan.


• Short Schrift—Timothy Carmody, author of The Bridge and the River: Notes on news, art, pop culture, politics, and ideas.


• the attic which is desire—Tim Lane, author of Pure Pop: Paintings.


• Wordwright—Gavin Craig, author of Nine Poems: Notes on the written word: books, newspapers, and lit mags, both analog and digital.


• Black Tee Shirt—Brandon Kelley, Revelator's resident designer: Notes on music culture, and New York life, and, of course, photos of black t-shirts.
  

2007 titles: the year of poetry

Letters to My Sister
by Angela Vasquez-Giroux

Composed as a series of letters to a family member serving in Iraq, Angela Vasquez-Giroux's first poetry chapbook is a vivid evocation of the fear, displacement, and uncertainty that war imposes on those who are left behind. Through images of fragmentation and fragility—misreadings of scripture, partial glimpses of a loved one in a news report—Letters to My Sister speaks of the challenges of survival, both for those in the field and at home. (more)

The Bridge and the River
by Timothy Carmody

From Detroit and Chicago to Harlem to Dublin, The Bridge and the River gives us a poetry as notable for its geographic exploration as its literary ambition. While Timothy Carmody's poems create new landscapes of the temporal, linguistic, and structural, it is, in the end, Carmody's empathy that makes his writing so powerful. (more)

Pure Pop
by Tim Lane

"Pure Pop is just that—a little bit of Coke, a little bit of homage to the Pops of the New York School, and a lot of heart. Tim Lane's gracefully fluent lyrics are celebratory, immediate, full of feeling, and full of life. Without falling into sloppy sentimentality or clunky derivation, Lane conjures his own world while stealing fire from the masters."
—Lisa Jarnot, author of Black Dog Songs and Ring of Fire (more)

Nine Poems
by Gavin Craig

"Nine Poems' minimalism isn't austere, but intimate and guarded, like fragments from a whispered, feverish conversation. Each poem withholds more than it gives. You read them as you would read a bruise hidden under a shirtsleeve, guessing that the discolored surface signals a story that's unlikely to be told. But there's also something bracing and reassuring about their silence, their insubstantiality; the signs of secrecy, a shared moment, a conspiracy."
—Timothy Carmody, author of The Bridge and the River (more)

Nine Poems

Nine Poems by Gavin Craig

"Nine Poems' minimalism isn't austere, but intimate and guarded, like fragments from a whispered, feverish conversation. Each poem withholds more than it gives. You read them as you would read a bruise hidden under a shirtsleeve, guessing that the discolored surface signals a story that's unlikely to be told. But there's also something bracing and reassuring about their silence, their insubstantiality; the signs of secrecy, a shared moment, a conspiracy."
—Timothy Carmody, author of The Bridge and the River

Poetry, 11 pp. Click here to download PDF.

Gavin Craig is a graduate student at Michigan State University, where he co-founded The Offbeat, and served as Editor from 1999–2001.