“I’m from away,” begins the first essay in Linda Buckmaster’s “Elemental: A Miscellany of Salt Cod and Islands.” “I wasn’t born in Maine so I’m someone from away, a ‘flatlander,’ despite the fact that I have lived here most of my life.”

She goes on to explain that she has a special interest in not only her own chosen home, but the whole northern Atlantic coast around Newfoundland and Labrador, oversea to the Orkney Islands. In all these places she’s “een fae off—’one from away.’”

“What is a ‘proper engagement’ with a place?” she wonders. Whether you’re a native, a resident, a visitor or a tourist may or may not matter, depending on your disposition and dependencies. “Elemental” is a book of essays, poems and short stories about who belongs where, and at what cost.

That first essay, “Bearings,” outlines the themes for the whole book. It places Buckmaster herself in Belfast, Maine, after growing up in Florida; wends to her interest in Newfoundland and Scotland; and then unfolds a brief history of the cod-fishing industry, whose social and economic interworkings are what connect this all together for her. Cod were caught by fishermen in enormous quantities from early settler times. Much of the catch was brought ashore in Newfoundland to be salted and dried on the beaches by women and children, grueling work. The better grades of salt cod were shipped to Europe, and the lower grades to the Caribbean as cheap food on sugar plantations. “Impoverished white workers were slaving to make food for Black slaves for other white people.” The plantation and fishing boat owners made fortunes in this system. By the late 20th century, the Grand Banks cod were almost fished out.

Buckmaster is one of Maine’s most capable off-the-bestseller-radars writers, and what unfolds after “Bearings” is a diverse selection of writings that explore coastal lives from the perspective of a wandering researcher from Belfast; a tourist in the Orkneys who finds herself with medical problems and no support system; and a literary imagineer, in six poignant short stories, of life and death of coastal insiders and outsiders, past and present. A tourist family visiting Maine does not escape the irony-seeking missiles of the writer who is herself “from away” in her own home as well as a sometime tourist.

“Elemental” is much more than a miscellany. It’s a quirky try at figuring out where here is. The book’s design — by Lori Harley, of Portland, one of the most inventive book designers for Maine small presses — reveals, through the artful use of photos and maps, how the disparate rhetorical approaches of the writings cohere in a whole that is somehow greater than the sum of its parts.

Linda Buckmaster is a former poet laureate of Belfast. Her books include the memoir “Space Heart,” the poetry collection “Heart Songs and Other Legacies,” and “Momentitos: A Mexican Journey.” “Elemental” is available from midcoast book shops and some online book sellers.

 Off Radar takes note of poetry and books with Maine connections the first and third Fridays of each month. Dana Wilde is a member of the National Book Critics Circle. Contact him at offradar@dwildepress.net.