Paternity by Scott Owens Main Street Rag, 2010 Paperback, 70 pages, $14 ISBN:  978-1-59948-222-4, Poetry Review by Ami Kaye

Paternity is a strong collection written with disarming candor and heart. Scott Owens extends the poetic prowess demonstrated in his previous collection, The Fractured World, to a book that is engaging, unpretentious and optimistic. The opening poem “Foundings,” is sensitive and poignant, The first time my stepson cried/ without his mother’s hands/to brush the pain away/ I came to him quickly/ without thinking. The swift and automatic reaction here is the key, followed by the moment of realization:

“And then, he leaned into me,
and my whole body changed
into something I had not known
existed,”

The complexity in the next poem “On the Days I Am Not My Father” underscores a deep rooted anxiety which many parents face when they have been involved in previously abusive relationships:

On the days I am not my father
holding you is enough until
holding you is no longer enough
for either of us. I listen well.
I let things go unfinished,
in an order I didn’t plan.

Anyone who has parented a baby can relate to the feelings expressed in these lines from “Promises at 2 A.M.” Owens speaks of the fierce love felt by parents, the vows they make to protect their child, and how the child grafts itself into a parent’s physical and emotional existence: After four months of holding you,/my body sways constantly,/rocks a little when I walk./ My left arm keeps the shape of a cradle. Switching tracks to another facet of parenting, a wealth of pain and regret inhabits this next poem from The Lost Son:

Every boy I see, roughly your age,
reminds me of you, makes me look
twice to find what face is hidden
beneath the shroud of hair falling
down, what unforgiving eyes
resenting even this poem, anything
I might claim from your unquenched pain.

Daily occurrences contain small pockets of joy to be treasured . In “Raising Sawyer” such a moment is articulated with tenderness: Sometimes you press into me/so hard it hurts, your nose/on my nose, face on my face,/as if there could never be/ too little space between us.

In “Defending the Indefensible” Owens ponders about the turmoil of abuse, the courage to write of such things and exposing one’s pain and vulnerability:

I think of my own days
locked in closets,
bloodied beneath the belt,
the hand on the electric stove.

Following a similar thread, “What Keeps Me Up at Night” speaks of fear, the determination to break the cycle, and a personal search for redemption:

I wake sweating, shaking,
spring from the bed,
afraid to stay in the dream
where my hands do the unspeakable,

We are sometimes positioned by our relationship to others; our social roles define us and name our place in life. This wise, astute poem little poem, “By,” furthers that insight:

I love towns called Midway,
places defined only
by relativity to other places,
North Augusta, Ninety-Six, Due West.

I think of Frost in the woods,
going on, keeping promises,
and I want to be known
as Sawyer’s Daddy, teacher,
gardener, reader of poems.

There are many excellent poems in this collection, such as “Naming,” in which the mystical beauty of the parent-child connection is so well articulated. The nirvana of parenthood, the epiphanies and wonder, the fears and taboos are explored with unvarnished honesty in a book that will be read and valued beyond the scope of what the title suggests.

Please check out “The Nature of Attraction,” a new collaboration by Scott Owens and Pris Campbell