{"id":768,"date":"2010-08-06T16:27:11","date_gmt":"2010-08-06T16:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=768"},"modified":"2010-08-06T16:27:11","modified_gmt":"2010-08-06T16:27:11","slug":"ken-head-reviews-non-dog-by-harry-owen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/ken-head-reviews-non-dog-by-harry-owen\/","title":{"rendered":"Ken Head reviews 'Non Dog' by Harry Owen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Non Dog<\/span> Harry Owen<\/a>  The Poets\u2019 Printery<\/a> (South Africa) ISBN:  0-620-46472-0 Paperback:  unpriced 59pp<\/p>\n

Harry Owen is an interesting man and I\u2019d recommend visiting his website and getting to know him better.  Having left England in 2008 for South Africa, where he now lives, this, his fourth collection, represents some of his early responses to life in a country he tells us friends described to him as such a dangerous place, although, as the poems demonstrate, his own view of his new home is rather different:  … for all its many problems, South Africa is one of the world\u2019s most stunningly beautiful and genuinely miraculous places.<\/span><\/p>\n

I lived an expatriate life myself for a good many years and know from experience that there are a number of ways in which the challenge of other cultures may be approached.  While the most obvious (not a choice I\u2019d recommend) is to decide that wherever you\u2019re living is really England under another name, the more sensible course is to accept that, as a new arrival, a degree of humility, acceptance of the status quo, obedience to the law and a  willingness to learn are called for.  I say this because \u201cQuestions to ask in South Africa\u201d, the first poem in the collection, makes exactly the same point and, in doing so, raises large questions.  When<\/span>, it asks, do things become too much?  When do you \/ start to begrudge it, feel you\u2019ve been taken \/ for a ride?  <\/span>Owen is referring to what a new arrival in a foreign land might perceive as the ridiculous unreasonableness of daily life, but in pursuing such questions, he offers responses which are surely pertinent in an age of global mass migration:  Why do you sense \/ your heart solidifying, congealing \/ like a crust into what you\u2019d rather not \/ be: \/ the cost of a breakfast, a chicken \/ a conscience or a soul?  <\/span>As a citizen of a country living through troubled times, I\u2019d like to pursue these questions;  as a reviewer, I\u2019ll resist the temptation and leave it to the poet:  What happens now?  What happens now?<\/p>\n

There are fifty-five poems in \u201cNon Dog\u201d, too many to do justice to and not all equally effective.  Some, though, \u201cHere and There (1) \/ i. Snowdrops\u201d, for example, lodge powerfully in the mind:<\/p>\n

So this is what we watched<\/span>
on the nine o\u2019clock news \u2013 <\/span>
machetes, black smoke of blazing tyres, <\/span>
tribal thump of drums, spears,<\/span>
Michael Buerk\u2019s shocked BBC integrity,<\/span>
the isn\u2019t it dreadful of a safe distance:<\/span>

blood, blood rinsed white as snowdrops<\/span>
in middle England\u2019s grass … <\/span><\/p>\n

Not that the comfort zones of English hypocrisy are Owen\u2019s only target, as we see in \u201cTimbuktu (after Ahmed Baba)\u201d:<\/p>\n

Write this down:<\/span>

I, a man, know how to escape the marketplace.<\/span>
We are not slaves or other merchandise,<\/span>
including salt, even of the earth.<\/span>

When judgement comes, watch the scholars\u2019 ink<\/span>
measuring itself against the blood of martyrs<\/span>
and observe how much weightier it is.<\/span>

Write this down. <\/span><\/p>\n

These two poems have real bite.  They are direct and reach beyond the personal to the importantly universal in ways which I find compelling.  Owen does have a lighter, more romantic side, though, and shows it in poems such as \u201cAbbie, on finding a bat in her bra\u201d and \u201crhetoricity\u201d.  Indeed, the range of his poetry, its accessibility and openness, are among the noteworthy aspects of the collection.  He writes with honesty, directness and humour about the world as he finds it, the sameness of all things; \/ the difference<\/span>, because, as he says in \u201cClockwork\u201d, I inhabit the world\u2019s skin<\/span>.
 <\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

…Reviewed by Ken Head<\/span>   \u00a92010<\/font><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Non Dog Harry Owen  The Poets\u2019 Printery (South Africa) ISBN:  0-620-46472-0 Paperback:  unpriced 59pp Harry Owen is an interesting man and I\u2019d recommend visiting his website and getting to know him better.  Having left England in 2008 for South Africa, where he now lives, this, his fourth collection, represents some of his early responses to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}