“Why ask where none can answer?” Scott Owens’ collection, Something Knows the Moment, poses this question and accompanies it with a hundred others about the nature of God, the nature of faith, of doubt, of trust and distrust, disillusion and resignation. Occasionally the subject of hope is addressed: “Here at least there is ice cream / and poetry, there are flowers” in the midst of “the nothing that surrounds us all.” The answer to that first searching question is, We ask because we cannot help but ask. –These poems are necessary.
— Fred Chappell, NC Poet Laureate
Scott Owens, in his collection, Something Knows the Moment, stares steadfastly into the “unrelenting zero” as if trying to pierce the other side of being itself with laser-like intensity. Blake does come to mind when reading these biblical sketches; however, Owens’ motives shed new light on some of the oldest ideas ever-he presents the Creator in such a way that the reader almost pities Him for his violent inventions–thus forcing the reader to immediately ponder his own nature and humanity. Good poetry does precisely this. At the root of these poems is a deep and palpable compassion, just as when one of Owens’ angels comes down to experience heaven on earth, the celestial tourist wonders, “how the world could help/ but hold such life, how things like this/ are let to fade, pass away”. Be forewarned–there is a tenderness in this book that might shame you.
— Joe Milford, The Joe Milford Poetry Show
In his new book of poems. Something Knows the Moment, Scott Owens fashions his own inimitable creation myth in a vital, imaginative retelling: Genesis, the New Testament, Jehovah Himself, Lucifer, the saints and angels, not to mention the ever-present specter of Dante. By turns these poems are terrifying and glorious, always luminous, informed by an abiding faith that the liturgy of poetry will leave us burnished and restored.
–Joseph Bathanti, Restoring Sacred Art