Described as part ‘ars poetica’ and part ‘carpe diem,’ The Song Is Why We Sing gathers poems that explore why poetry matters and how it shapes how we perceive and inhabit the world. The collection blends reflection, instruction, and inspiration, offering readers insight into both the craft of poetry and the lived experience of a writer committed to attention, contemplation, and expression. As poet Malaika King Albrecht observes, the poems are marked by “a reverent attention to the present moment with exacting language… grounded in the dailiness of life yet attuned to wonder.”

“To some extent, every poem is an ‘ars poetica,’” Owens notes. “By its very existence, a poem declares the rightness of its approach toward perception, contemplation, expression, and existence. Putting these poems together in one book made that process a conscious one.”

While the collection looks back across a long and accomplished career, it is far from purely retrospective. Instead, The Song Is Why We Sing invites readers into an ongoing conversation about language, creativity, and the necessity of art in everyday life. The poems linger on small but expansive moments—clouds, memory, a knot in the grass—revealing, as Albrecht writes, “how small things hold entire universes for those willing to pause with presence.”

This collection will appeal to poets and poetry lovers, as well as teachers, students, thinkers, observers, and anyone who enjoys words and the quiet revelations they can bring. As Owens puts it simply through the work itself, poetry is not just something we read—it is something we live.