Poetry should disturb us; it should create
an uneasy feeling in our stomachs. In
“Fates Worse Than Death,” the first poem in
section one, The Fractured World, Owens
invites the reader to empathize not just with
the abused, but also with the abuser. In
their brokenness, how do either of them go
on? Will they become the solitary
characters that populate poems like
“Sunday Afternoon, Atlanta Fulton County
Stadium,” or will they emerge in high profile
like the multiple-personality figure of Billy
Milligan in the exceptionally well-conceived
“Splinters”?