Naming the Trees
A deep-dive into the human relationship with trees and how trees have shaped folklore and literature.
Sparked by a campaign to save the ancient forest of Penrhos, an SSSI on Ynys Môn, from being turned into a holiday camp, Ness explores Welsh folklore of trees and her own love for and engagement with the trees and other wild aspects of her home, as well as more common garden flowers, which should be treated with respect (Daffodils are Dangerous).
Ness Owen has an ongoing conversation with her native language and some poems are presented bilingually: there is a link to be made between the disregarding of native language and the disregarding of native habitat.
Far more than a book of nature poems, there is a simmering frustration at the casual way we despoil our environment without any concern for what is destroyed or the ongoing impact of that destruction.
Ness Owen
Ness Owen lives on the island of Ynys Môn, off the North Wales coast, where she writes plays, poetry and stories in between lecturing and farming. Her poems have been widely published in journals and anthologies. Ness’s first collection Mamiaith (Mother Tongue) was published by Arachne Press in 2019; and her work also appeared in our anthology An Outbreak of Peace. She is one two guest editors for our bilingual anthology A470.
