Another review

A deeply moving true story which describes Nick's thoughts and feelings as he copes with the grief of losing his wife Gill suddenly. You can not fail to be touched by some of the beautiful poems or to relate to some of his feelings whether you are grieving or not. Very touching, raw and personal. Definitely worth a read.


Terasa Beech

A Journey Through Grief accepted by The Poetry Library on the London South Bank

I am delighted to report  that "A Journey Through Grief" has been accepted by the publications committee to be included in the National Poetry Library on the South Bank in London.

The poetry library is situated on the fifth floor of the Festival Hall.

The library no longer accepts all donations of poetry books offered to them, so I have a sense of formal recognition for my work.

With typical artistic insecurity about my own value, I am unsure if this is partly because Chipmunka, my publisher,  has been accepted as a publisher there.

From the fore word to the book

Foreword

Every once in a while someone with a gift happens to cross our path. We think we’re lucky that they make us smile and laugh. We may even recognize how much we learn about ourselves when they trippingly cause us to recognize our simple and very human lacks.

Nick Owen had the chance to experience that kind of love with another human being which brings joy with the day and some quality of peace even to our restless, life-boggled nights. In the company of his beloved, Nick recognized the effervescent preciousness of reality which is…and which we all long to experience in life.

Then she was gone.

Every once in a while someone with a gift happens to cross our path. And maybe…just maybe we recognize an even fuller breadth of fortune, when the loss of their company brings us to reflect in an emotional mirror which now seems forever cracked.

So much about human life is chance. We hope to live with luck, love and passion without wanting to recognize how much rationality love teaches and how that expansion of our personal universe will remain forever with us even if there comes a day when our beloved is no longer there to touch, to gaze upon, to reach out towards on the mortal plain.

Yet, through the enduring sense of who we have become, because we loved and were loved, we become more solidified and assured. And because of that infinite endowment, when beauty happens upon us we are more gratefully gratified and fully aware…of that beauty, and of our capacity for ever-deeper yearning.

Nick Owen’s ‘Journey through Grief’ is one man’s rumination and photographic capturing of a life which in its ‘un-becoming’ has become something far greater than he wanted to imagine he could see. Through poetic words, through admitting how much it hurts to lose someone we love clearly and dearly, Nick endows each turn of nature’s branch, each flood of air stirring a long-unnoticed parlour curtain with the awareness of potential, chance, presence, passage and precious opportunity.

‘Journey through Grief’ isn’t a sad book - it’s an honest one. It’s a gift which in your hands is taken into your heart for however long you carry it’s blessings with you. It’s a reminder that our very humanity and personal vulnerabilities are often the keys to all we seek, all we may yet know, and that we treasure most dearly.

- Boots Hart

Los Angeles, California

                               

                                       

    

                                                         Preface           

This book id dedicated to those who grieve, and to Gillian Allison Owen, who loved me and left me to grieve for her.

Poetry brought us together, and it is fitting that I begin this journey with a reference to her favourite poet, Shelley. I have slightly adapted these lines fro Adonais to fit with a woman’s death, rather than a man’s. Please excuse my poetic licence.

            Peace, Peace! She is not dead, she doth not sleep-

            She has awakened from this dream of life-

            “Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep

            With phantoms an unprofitable strife

            And in mad trance, strike with our spirit’s knife

            Invulnerable things. _We decay

            Like corpses in a charnel: fear and grief

            Convulse us and consume us day by day,

    And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay    

            She has outsoared the shadow of our night;

            Envy and calumny and hate and pain,

            And that unrest, which men miscall delight,

            Can touch her not and torture not again;

            From the contagion of the world’s slow stain

            She is secure, and now can never mourn

            A heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain;

            Nor, when the spirit’s self has ceased to burn,

     With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn.

   

Some feedback from writers poets and critics on the book

Quotes and comments from people who have had a preview of the book.


"I am a great believer in the public and collective potential of poetry, but I also think that a certain kind of poetry does resemble the ancient practice of a lone individual talking directly with God or the sacred," Alex Niven, editor of the Oxonian Review.


"I would be happy to support this book. It is very poignant and can help others." Jason Pegler, publisher, and author of "A can of Madness"

"Thank you for sending your poems though, which I've read. 

As they stand, I think they would make a lovely personal memorial for your wife" Kate Clanchy. 

(This one does not sit well at all with me! I publish it for the sake of balance. I just find it patronizing and insensitive.)






"I was honoured to conduct the funeral of the extraordinary woman at the centre of this book. Nick's book is intensely intimate: it takes the reader over wild seas of self-reflection, provoking learning all the way. Well worth reading." Emma Restell Orr, writer and druid.

An extraordinary woman at the centre of this book

"I was honoured to conduct the funeral of the extraordinary woman at the centre of this book. Nick's book is intensely intimate: it takes the reader over wild seas of self-reflection, provoking learning all the way. Well worth reading." Emma Restell Orr, writer and druid.


Good to have a new review of the book, however brief.

Third anniversary, memories, meditations and reflections.

I made a mandala from rose petals taken from flowers at the grave. Looks good enlarged.

The roses to the left of the grave have come into bloom, but the white maids of honour have yet to show themselves. Hawk, pig and frog stand guard as ever by the headstone.


Only a couple of weeks till the book launch now. I am getting really excited.