Saturday Review: “Poems of Hope and Redemption” a review by James W. Kirkland of Scott Owens’s Prepositional (2022) in NCLR Online Fall 2023.
With poems like “The Problem with Deciding on a Single Object to Follow the Preposition” and “Communication During Covid” (“You say, You can take off your mask, / but I hear, You’ve got cake on your ass”), poet Scott Owen’s intent to “write new poems about the redemption inherent in relationships” may seem hard to pair with his “penchant for “playing around” with prepositions.”
But, as James Kirkland says, when “Owen takes us on a journey from, to, of, with, and through the book’s varied sections, each named for a different preposition” we see the poet in the varied roles of his relationships. So that when a poem like “Until” comes along, and we hear the “husband assuring his wife that love does not diminish with age but endures “until the last leaf falls, / trees refuse to bud, / buds refuse to flower,”” we know that Owens was true to his goal. Kirkland points out how Owen’s exploration of relationships and prepositions reminds us of the strength of words and the deeper meaning found in “something as small and seemingly insignificant as a preposition (“Nearing the end of my sentence”) or as momentous as Owens’s apocalyptic vision of the “last day of the world” in “Away,” the last poem in the book.” Owen’s varied uses of prepositions allow them to take on a new meaning for each new poem and gives Owen more freedom to explore relationships and human nature throughout his book.
Kirkland also points out that, included in Owen’s book “are the many humorous poems interspersed with those more serious in tone” which help to give the collection some levity in between Owen’s more philosophical ponderings. These light-hearted verses mixed with the heavier content of the rest of the work make Prepositional both touching and fun to read.
Whether “acting the part of a make-believe superhero” in “What’s Wrong with Super Powers,” or being “a father engaging his two-year-old daughter in a conversation about the “awesome power of stars”” in “Naming the Stars,” it is clear that “Owens is above all a gifted poet, repeatedly reminding us that “the hope we have / is strongest when we find a way / to put it into words.””
Read another review of Scott Owens’s poetry by James W. Kirkland in NCLR Online Fall 2022.
Read the review and buy the book from RedHawk or from your local independent bookstore.
