The Book of LIFE
Joseph Campana
(Tupelo Press, March 1, 2019)
Here is a poet who persists in the hope of reawakening the past. The Book of LIFE finds inspiration in the pages of LIFE magazine, from its origin in the great depression to its demise amid the Apollo missions, with many milestones between: the Korean War and Cuban missile crisis, the Vietnam War and immolation of Thich Quang Duc, and the Kennedy and King assassinations. LIFE's compendium of the American century stretches from its initial cover, Margaret Bourke-White's photo of the Fort Peck Dam in Montana, to its final, year-in-review issue covering the lunar mission, with an image of the Earth that awakened a planetary consciousness.