June Campbell Rose and Stacie Smith first met in 1967 in East Boothbay, Maine. Smith, a photographer and poet, had traveled from Eugene, Oregon, to Maine. Rose had recently given birth to her first son, Nathan. Smith met this mother and child at the post office and wanted to take their portrait. This turned out to be a very special meeting during which time a bond was made: both were born-again poets who kept journals and notebooks, filled with their thoughts laid down, like life lines to a deeper self. Fifty years in the making, this book reveals a unique collaboration between two poets whose histories include deep roots upon opposite shores, a chance meeting, and the exchange of poems, spanning time and distance.
Stacie Smith was born in Salem, Oregon. A fourth-generation Oregonian, she grew up in Eugene, in the Willamette Valley. She has been a visual artist for over fifty years. She was awarded a writer's residency at Playa Summer Lake, Oregon, in 2014. The following year she was granted a residency through Oregon State University's Spring Creek "Trillium Project." Her first book of poems, Open Burning, was self-published in 2016. Meanwhile the Earth: Poems from Cougar Creek, was published by Shanti Arts Publishing in 2018, followed by Real News, her third volume of poetry, in 2019. In June 2018 Stacie was invited to present her science-related poetry and art to the Yachats Academy of Arts and Sciences.
June Campbell Rose was born in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. She has lived her entire life in that beautiful coastal region. She attended the University of Maine in Orono, where her poems were accepted for publication in a university collection. After graduation, while employed as a social worker, June moonlighted as a feature writer for the Kennebec Journal. As a young mother of three sons during the late sixties and seventies, June continued to write and seek publication in various periodicals, with some success. Her poems were included in two editions of Puddingstone Publications, a special feature of Boothbay Region's Annual Lincoln Arts Festival. Currently, June is gallery manager at the Boothbay Region Art Foundation, a nonprofit members' association. She is also a folk artist who produces fiber art, hand-made altered books, and mixed-media collage. She has been the organist at the East Boothbay Methodist Church for fifty years.
