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This Business of Wisdom
Poems by Lauren Camp

The poems in This Business of Wisdom suggest a syllabus of the lessons each human
aces “as you grow, persistent but clumsy, into your bones.” With sometimes playful,
often pointed language, the author draws upon nature, music, dreams and current events
to illustrate how to gain one’s place in the world. Chaos can be met with patience and
perseverance. Despite obstacles, dangers and painful losses, the poet shows us how what
we see can be trusted. In this first volume of poetry, Lauren Camp focuses a prismatic
lens on the ragged aesthetic of society, and by doing so, constructs an educated view of
life.

“In ‘Wisconsin’ the poet runs a finger over a map on an imagined road trip. We are
guided and we believe we have been there because the language is so full of signposts.
Lauren Camp’s poems work in this way. She takes us on wisdom’s precise road trip,
where the emotional and daily news collide, and the personal and political cohabit and
provide counter point. And we are willing travelers.

– Joan Logghe, author of Twenty Years in Bed with the Same Man.


From the book:

Slow
by Lauren Camp

Eyes open, legs splayed in the powdery dirt,

she likes the cool of it, the dynamic surge
of just belonging to a place like this,

brown and barren and slow as rust.
She digs deeper with her toes and hums.
When the sun crests the kitchen window,

she catches fragments of light on her thumb

and drags her hand across her chin –

like buttercups.

This will be the year the piñons die,
the year the tamarisks stretch inches to the core,
the year she goes away 

– and then returns
 to find the worms still multiplying.
Maybe there is no final resolution,

yesterday is how it will be again tomorrow.

The earth will slowly crust into tenacious particles,

stillness cradled inside like a newborn.

About the Author:

Raised in New York, Lauren Camp has lived in a rural village south of Santa Fe, New
Mexico since 1994. She spends part of each week writing, producing and broadcasting
"Audio Saucepan,” an hour of eclectic music and words, for KSFR-FM Public Radio.

She is also an accomplished visual artist – creating fiber portraits, sculptures and mixed-
media work. Her series, “The Fabric of Jazz,” was exhibited in ten museums in the U.S.
over a four-year period. Many of her works have been commissioned, collected and
exhibited by hospitals, museums, cultural centers, U.S. embassies and other public
places.

To learn more, visit www.laurencamp.com.
This Business of Wisdom is Camp’s first book.


Publisher: West End Press
First edition: September 2010
ISBN 978-0-9826968-2-8
6" x 9"
$11.95
72 pages
To order:  www.westendpress.org

This Business of Wisdom is the seventh volume in the West End Press 
New Series,

featuring full-length titles by emerging and recently 
recognized authors


 


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