Every so often I read a poetry collection that totally throws me for a loop. In the case of Hudson Owen's The Endless Evolving Trilogy, I would make that two loops.
Owen's mind works in ways that few poets' minds work. His perspective in the first section of the Trilogy -- The Living Legend of Peezis Rilly Here -- is truly unique, and takes strong, overt political stands. While much of the work in this first section hovers on the verge of doggerel, it by no means lessens the powerful messages behind poems like "The Carnival of Appetites":
"Step right up and change your color.
Change your I.Q., bright or duller.
Inflate your rate, improve your tone.
Compose your nose, exchange your kinks.
It's easier than you suppose," L. Vie winks.
"Squirt silicone. All at the chemical exhibition.
The price is just your inhibition."
Even more impressive to me were the poems in the latter two sections of Owen's Trilogy, which deal head-on with the ironies and bitter fallout of the Vietnam War. In these sections, Owen steps away from the contrived rhymes that work fine in the first section, but would be a bit too flippant for the statements he wants to make here. These lines from "Vietnam" are just wonderful examples of how lyrical Owen can be:
There will always be a jungle
where an old man sits on a mat
and buries the day in opium sleep,
and a young mother searches
among the dead for her own.
There will always be a wind
that blows through the village,
sweeping the clouds from the moon
and the incense from the temple,
the rude rekindling of war.
Even if you're thrown off by the poems of the first section of The Endless Evolving Trilogy, Owen will win you over with his brazen style and humor, as well as his lyrical sensibilities and willingness to wear his heart on these pages.
