The Wrecks of Eden

Susan McKnight is an administrator of the Courts Technology Integrated Justice Project at the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General.

Vancouver poet Catherine Owen writes poems that get under your skin.
Those in Part 1, “The Lost,” are mournful tributes to various flora
and fauna that have become extinct over the years. They detail the
unnecessary demise of creatures as small as the Israeli gerbil and as
large as Steller’s sea cow. Despite Owen’s frequent use of Christian
references, we are left with the impression that God has forsaken these
creatures by placing them at the mercy of humanity.

Part 2, “Genesis of an Inhumanist,” is a moving tribute to Robinson
Jeffers, a much-neglected modern American poet who was a follower of
Inhumanist philosophy. Owen uses lines from his poetry to formulate her
answers to questions about the ecological crisis the world is facing
today. Although she declares herself Jeffers’s nemesis, it appears she
is more a compatriot.

Part 3, “In Limbo,” addresses those endangered species that are
silently holding on amid the ravages of technology, urban development,
and man’s inability to revere nature. This section ends with a
beautiful tribute to Al Purdy: “I thank / you anyway for gold hairs: /
snail horns: / and the ivory thought in your words/ ever-warm,
unextinct.” The final section, “The Found,” is a celebration of
those things in nature that persevere and keep beauty alive.

Owen’s previous collections include Somatic: The Life and Work of
Egon Schiele, A Practice of Spirit, and Black Milk.