Nothing prepared me for the immediacy and yet intimacy of the poems in Fractured World.  Nor the  intensely painful revelations about our woundedness and vulnerability, not to mention our despair at being turned into empty vessels by the "game" of a world divided into sides always at war with each other.  As "Taking the Field declares, "And this is the way/you play the game/...you are nothing unless you win," says the black booted man who draws a line and tells you, "whoever stands/across that line/is your enemy.../and you must  hit him/and you must beat him/until he falls..."The irony in these often bruising poems is that the winner in this game becomes the lost one, the numbed and empty one who moves through his world either enraged or numbed.  Scott Owens has given us a powerful, disturbing look at our contemporary fractured world. 

Kathryn Stripling Byer, NC Poet Laureate

 
Scott Owens' poems grab the reader by the throat from the opening line and don't let go, unspooling down the page with verve and startling moments of insight and imagination. He's the real thing.

Ron Rash

“The Fractured World” is a courageous examination of the long term effects of child abuse in our society.  Owens’ poems are at times heartbreaking, at times humorous, yet always triumphant.

Tim Peeler