Matthew Campbell Roberts
Matthew Campbell Roberts was born and reared in Napa, California, and attended a one-room schoolhouse set in the middle of a vineyard.
Later, after working as a carpenter and fly-fishing guide, he attended Western Washington University and Eastern Washington University where he received a Master of Fine Arts Degree. He currently teaches college composition and creative writing courses.
His poems and other works appear in various literary journals and anthologies. Roberts has spent decades fly fishing on Puget Sound and Northwest rivers, and many of his poems reflect those days and memories. Since we live in a time of environmental disruption, his work stands as witness to the various gradients of degradation.
There are also poems in this book about the memory of his father and their experiences together. Although many lost time, grief, and self-renewal, are universal. This book is about returning to the river in mind and spirit.
The author lives in Bellingham, Washington.
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Poem from A River Once More
The Saltchuck
The slow mist unfolds reshaping the known world. I find old men from my youth in worn oil-skin coats skinning flounder and spitting tobacco. They speak of ling cod reeled from deep-fathomed caves, of knucklebusters, and the world’s ancient currents, of the saltchuck, and slough sedge bending in rain, of driftwood duck blinds, and green-winged teal planing in during winter storms. I walk through their lives, as the mist radiates with longing.
