University Libraries Promotion and Tenure Recognition

“The original sheets of paper pull apart like ice floes and the blank spaces in between seem to possess the raw promise of new ice on the surface of the ocean.” —Campbell

This Campbell writes of fragments of print artifacts, rescued from sixteenth-century Arctic ice. Campbell’s poetic prose, exploring landscapes both close to home and in the High Arctic, is steeped in the richness of metaphor, binding history, science, and memoir in ways that are immediately personal and universal in this grave time of the Anthropocene. Although the Arctic as place is mostly foreign to me, the visual, auditory, and experiential collections in this library were resonant at each pull of the page, allowing me to be both acutely aware of our negative effects on the environment and breathe hope into the spaces in between. I came across this book, and subsequent friendship with Campbell, late in my time on the tenure track; it pulled me to the end of that journey and through the door to the next.