In Prepositional Scott Owens highlights the preposition as a metaphor for shared humanity, and with an engaging playfulness, he explores human relationships and the world at large, drawing upon a rich mosaic of life experiences. Owens parses our connections, “As you are a part, I am a part,/and though we can be just one,/ we are always also many,/ and we can never be completely apart.” Brimming with artistry, Prepositional also displays our universality: “Where I come from/ is the same place you come from…” Throughout the book subtle humor abounds, bringing text and subtext into play: “Without prepositions it’s hard to imagine/ where we would end up.” Prepositional sweeps the reader on a rollicking journey in lyric landscapes of language, where “So much of who we are/resides there – between the lips/of any human mouth.”—Ami Kaye, Publisher & Editor, Glass Lyre Press

Scott Owens writes poetry as if he were a painter, seeing more than other people see, looking beyond the obvious. Owens sees and invites the reader to visualize images, actions, beliefs, purposes, motives, and results of what he has gleaned from his life as a child, a husband, a father, a teacher, a human being who took notice.

In “Where I Come From” he explores how we are more alike than different. “On Settelmeyer Bridge,” shows us that “only the names change.” This is a collection of some of Owens’s most loved poems mixed with newer poems such as “Coffee During Covid.” Toward the end of the book, he writes about aging, what he treasures and what he has learned. In “Nearing the End of my Sentence,” he writes “I long for a semi-colon, a dash, a parenthesis, at least another comma.” This is another Scott Owens book I will read again and again.—Glenda Council Beall – poet, author

In Prepositional Scott Owens trues the lapping sand from “Where I Come From” all the way to the Dollar General where he offers the truth that words work the way they do for the enrichment of us all. We must keep on keeping on seems to be the root message, and enjoying it as we do. His philosophical lyrics prove that “Where there is language there is art.”—Shelby Stephenson’s recent book is Country.He was poet laureate of North Carolina from 2015-2018

Poet Scott Owens has been working steadily, especially in the period since 2006 on poetry that distinguishes itself craft-wise with a seamless quality that links a powerfully disturbing history to a fulfilling, successful adulthood. In Prepositional, he eschews the expectations for the New and Selected format by offering decidedly more of the New, a circumstance that will delight his devoted readers. If you know Scott’s work, you’ll know that Norman is here, of course, to direct all these flashing memories and precise observations down the forever river, “refusing to be forgotten.”—Tim Peeler, author and editor