Riven: Poems

Written by Catherine Owen

Narrated by Catherine Owen

Winner of the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry

In 2010, Catherine Owen’s 29-year-old spouse died of a drug addiction. A year later, she relocated to an apartment by the Fraser River in Vancouver, B.C. As she moved beyond the initial shock, the river became her focus: a natural, damaged space that both intensifies emotion and symbolizes healing. In a sequence of aubades, or dawn poems, Owen records the practice of walking by or watching the river every morning, a routine that helps her engage in the tough work of mourning. Riven (a word that echoes river and means rift) is an homage to both a man and an ecosystem threatened by the presence of toxins and neglect. Yet, it is also a song to the beauty of nature and memory, concluding in a tribute to Louise Cotnoir’s long poem The Islands with a piece on imagined rivers. While Designated Mourner honors grief, Riven focuses on modes of survival and transformation through looking outward, and beyond.

• Language: English
• Publisher: ECW Press
• Release date: May 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781773056401

Catherine Owen

Catherine Owen, from Vancouver, BC, has published sixteen collections of poetry and prose, including The Wrecks of Eden (Wolsak and Wynn, 2002), Frenzy (Anvil Press, 2009), Designated Mourner and Riven (ECW, 2014 and 2020). Her work has won the Stephan G. Stephansson Prize, been translated into Italian and toured Canada twelve times. She now edits, tutors, and hosts the podcast Ms. Lyric's Poetry Outlaws from Delilah, her 1905 home in Edmonton, AB.