Reading Poetry After Change

Eventually, Haiku by Scott Owens
 
Illustrated by Missy Cleveland
 
Redhawk Publications

It started as a conversation we'd have on a trail, should we move back to WNC now or wait? I had a great job but every day the stress tore more and more deeply into me. The city we lived in was no longer an urban delight, my commute got longer and longer. In December, we decided that 2026 was going to be the year, our big escape. We thought by May or June maybe I would get a job offer. Instead, the slow retreat became a fevered dash, we had three weeks to not only move but downsize. By May, we'd sold our house and were fully in our new life. What joy, what luck, but also, what a rollercoaster ride! 

 It felt fitting to reach for a book of haiku during such a turbulent time. It also felt fitting for it to be written by Scott Owens. I can't think of anyone else who has done more for poetry in the Hickory area and most likely WNC. My brain was fried from the busyness of moving and starting a new job but Scott's haiku delighted me, anchored me, held my attention when very little else did. It was the first book that I finished in our little rented cottage, I had it with me the last night we spent in our house in the city. Eventually was my companion. 

 I love haiku because often they include a surprise within them. The delight of a haiku is that moment in time in which you, the reader, experience along side the poet. The line I feed myself/by writing poems moved me so much, I dog-earred the pages. Scott's haiku are about so many things - his delight in his daughter, the joy of every day life, writing, and nature. I adored Missy Cleveland's illustrations, they brought a level of light heartedness and magic that did not take away from Scott's work only added to it. 

 I am thankful that back in December, I ordered this book from Redhawk Publications. At the time, I didn't realize how much I would need it and how much I would enjoy it, my lifeline through the madness.



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