Riven

• About the book

<p><b>Winner of the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry</b></p> <p>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. <cite>Riven</cite> (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 <cite>The Islands</cite> with a piece on imagined rivers. While <cite>Designated Mourner</cite> honors grief, <cite>Riven</cite> focuses on modes of survival and transformation through looking outward, and beyond.</p>