Winner of the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry (Alberta Book Awards)
In Greek mythology the Muses preside over the arts and inspire writers and artists to produce works of genius. In Frenzy, Catherine Owen pays homage to the muse in a six-part compilation of muse-quests, some the author’s, some those of others. These muses can be a person, a place, or even the absurdity itself of indefinitely seeking the muse.
“Catherine Owen is a neo-romantic bard whose idiosyncratic poetry is barbed with aspects of Tough Love wed to the groom of nihilism. This poet wears a black mood for a wedding dress as she casts invective against bourgeois normalcy. Mistress of neologism and its conflicted ally—ambiguity?—this musifier is unabashedly shameless in making herself “lovesick”. A poet taster’s head spins, which may not be a bad thing. In an era of political correctness and its self-righteous terrorisms, Owen’s muse skateboards over society’s niceties as her love junkie heart leaps like an adolescent
butterfly. Revel in the nuances of light and darkness doing a tango in the ineffable quest for the muse’s many forms.”
—Joe Rosenblatt (poet, artist, editor, and recipient of the Governor General’s Literary Award)
“Catherine Owen is an extraordinarily gifted poet. It’s not just the sheer sonic pleasure of her language or the largesse of her endlessly inventive imagery but that she is unsettled and unsettling, deeply disobedient and yet almost selfless in her surrender to form. These poems, and especially the Flood-Ghazals, take you down and then drag you up again, gasping for air.”
—Robert Priest (poet, songwriter, playwright, winner of the Milton Acorn Memorial People’s Poetry Award)
Catherine Owen is a Vancouver poet and writer, the author of nine collections of poetry. A book of essays and memoirs, Catalysts: Confrontations with the Muse, was published earlier this year. Catherine’s work has appeared in periodicals throughout Canada, Austria, NewZealand, and Australia. Her books and poems have been nominated for numerous awards, including the Gerald Lampert Award, the BC Book Prize, the ReLit Award, the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature, Short Grain, and The Earle Birney Prize. Her last book of poetry, Frenzy (Anvil), won the Alberta Literary Award in 2009. She has a Masters degree in English and played bass in the metal bands Inhuman and Helgrind. Her current metal project is Medea.
