Here, Owen explains the thinking behind his first collection, and discusses details of his upcoming book tour.
Otherwise Unchanged is my first collection, so, when asked to start choosing which poems to include, one of the most important aims was to provide a cross-section of the themes, subjects, and styles that had dominated my writing up until that point.
Hoping not to make the approach too scatter-gun, it seemed best to split the book into three approximate groups. The first was assigned to less formal and more intimate poems, reflecting on aspects of life and love with my wife, Jayne; football (another important passion); nature, mostly focused on holidays on The Isle of Mull; and the two years I spent in Southport Spinal Injuries Unit. That is a mixed bag in itself, but they are all definitive and inspiring subjects from a personal perspective.
The second section of Otherwise Unchanged is directly or indirectly connected to war, conflict, trauma, Holocaust, and war poetry. This is a bit of sea change, but recognizes that my background includes an MA in Military Studies, as well as an MA in Creative Writing. Edward Thomas, Keith Douglas, and Alun Lewis have all been major influences for me, as have the testimonies of Primo Levi and other Holocaust writers, so it was important to reflect this in the second section. More oblique aspects of war are also represented. ‘A day’s work with Kitty Blake’, for example, sets the life of a female painter in a pottery factory against the broader backdrop of the Second World War. In the final section of Otherwise Unchanged, the emphasis is on reactions to music, art, and other literature, including the pictures of Dame Paula Rego. The latter predicts my next book, Rego Retold, which is due to be published by Carcanet in early 2015, with backing from the Arts Council, and will feature my poems alongside high-quality reproductions of the artist’s work.
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Beginning on 7 September at the SouthBank Centre, the book tour of Otherwise Unchanged will also involve a considerable amount of co-operation, with poems from the book being combined with visual and musical interpretations by Sam Skiner and Simon Jones respectively. The tour is being supported by Unlimited and the Arts Council, and produced by Mercy’s Nathan Jones. The work that we have been putting in thus far has already provided a fascinating and invaluable insight into my poetry from the point of view of the project’s various collaborators, as well from that of potential audiences. These are lessons which should stand me in very good stead in the future.
Tickets are available for the following readings:
10 February 2015 - Octagon Theatre, Bolton (More info TBC)
We are hoping to add further dates in the spring of 2015, details of which will be made available in due course. Readers interested in seeing a promotional clip of one of the tour’s feature poems can view that here.
Owen Lowery
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