Harry Owen
AWARDS & HONOURS:
- Poet Laureate, Cheshire, UK, 2003
- Founded Reddits Poetry 2008
- Std Bank Ovation Award, Natl Arts Festival 2020
- Shortlisted South African Natl Poetry Prize 2023
(Photo credit: Roddy Fox)
Hailing from Liverpool, UK, Harry Owen made literary history as the inaugural Poet Laureate for Cheshire in 2003 during his residence in Congleton. In January 2008, he relocated to the Eastern Cape of South Africa, where he founded and hosted Reddits Poetry, a successful open-floor poetry event that thrived for over a decade.
Harry holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Pretoria. His work is widely recognized and published in an array of literary magazines, journals, and anthologies across South Africa, the UK, and the USA in esteemed publications such as Orbis, Magma, Iota, Stanzas, New Contrast, The Cortland Review, Johannesburg Review of Books, Kalahari Review, The Quilled Ink Review, About Place Journal, For the Silent, among many others.
An ardent advocate for environmental issues, Harry is the author of ten poetry collections, including:
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Searching for Machynlleth (NPF Publications, 2000)
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Small Stones for Bromley (Lapwing, 2014)
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The Cull: New and Resurrected Poems (Poets Printery, 2017)
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Thicket: Shades from the Eastern Cape (Minimal Press, 2021)
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for... (Bicornis Press, 2024)
His eleventh collection, Mindforest, is published by Quilled Ink Press, 2026.
In addition to his poetry, Harry has edited the following three anthologies with Poets Printery: I Write Who I Am: An Anthology of Upstart Poems (2011); Coming Home: Poems of the Grahamstown Diaspora (2019); and For Rhino in a Shrinking World: An International Anthology (2013).
Harry's artistic collaboration with photographer Roddy Fox earned them the Standard Bank Ovation Award at the 2020 National Arts Festival for their project In Tandem. Renowned for his readings and performances, both in-person and online (notably with Cape Town’s ‘Off The Wall Poetry’ and ‘The Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Collective’), he was shortlisted for the South African National Poetry Prize in 2023.
After thirteen years in Grahamstown/Makhanda, Harry now resides with his wife in the picturesque village of Kylemore, nestled among the mountains and vineyards near Stellenbosch in the Western Cape.
'Magic for me is the feeling that my own heartbeat, my own breathing, is as a response to and in parallel with a heartbeat and a breath that is already out there'
- Harry Owen
Harry Owen's Books
'Note how we emasculate our world:
pain’s just the way we make sense of things.
Question me, then. I’ll have no answer.'
- Harry Owen
Mindforest: where capitalist economics forms the basis of a language that exploits and damages the natural world, perhaps ecopoetry, whether rooted in South Africa or elsewhere, can offer a more enriching alternative tongue.
Mindforest is available in:
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Paperback - 978-1-0492-1904-2
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Ebook - 978-1-0672-0972-8
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Hardcover - 978-1-0672-0971-1
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Audiobook - 978-1-0672-0970-4
Libraries:
Praise for Mindforest
“Magical, thought-provoking, startling, uplifting and sometimes sad . . . Mindforest is a breathtaking exploration of humanity's relationship with nature, blending sharp ecological awareness with profound emotional resonance. Harry Owen crafts a lyrical and vivid landscape that bridges the wild and the human, offering readers a chance to pause, reflect and reconnect. This collection challenges, consoles and ultimately inspires—a vital testament to the power of ecopoetry.” – Don Pinnock, environmental journalist and poet.
"This collection of poems offers a searing critique of how we have separated ourselves from each other and lorded ourselves supreme above all flora and fauna . . . This is a collection that simultaneously calls for action and offers comfort.” – Prof. Sioux McKenna, Rhodes University.
“Accessible, tender, probing” – Em Prof. Dan Wylie, Rhodes University; poet.
“Ecopoetry plus: this collection both addresses the beauty and human-induced fragility of the natural world and questions the role of the human individual within it.”. – Sheenagh Pugh, poet, translator & critic.
“This type of poetry should once again become a cornerstone of any educational program! Emotions, intellect, love, rage, critique, humility and upliftment take the readers along a wide range of vistas, while also guiding them to the poet’s innermost motivation.” – Saskia Stehouwer, Dutch poet, and Harry Wels, Anthropologist
