Poet Profile

Renée Owen

Renée Owen’s poetry, informed by a love of nature, is widely published, and has won numerous awards in the Haiku Society of America/HSA’s contests, CVHC’s Kilbride Haibun Contests, and the SF International Haiku and Rengay Competitions, among others. This One Life (Backbone Press), her newest book of haiku & haibun, is forthcoming in 2020, after winning 2nd Place in their haiku chapbook contest. Alone On A Wild Coast, her first full-length collection, was jointly awarded first prize in the Snapshot Press Book Awards and an Honourable Mention in the Touchstone Distinguished Book Awards. She edited Scent of the Past… Imperfect (Two Autumns Press), receiving an Honorable Mention in HSA’s 2017 Merit Book Awards. Renée has served on The Haiku Foundation’s Touchstone Awards for Individual Poems juror panel and judged numerous contests. Selections of her work are featured in Haiku 21, in A New Resonance 7: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku, and in a variety of anthologies, including several from Red Moon Press, as well as handmade artists’ books. Her mixed-media fiber and book art, held in public & private collections, has won awards in juried exhibits and can be found in print in Surface Design Journal (Winter 2018), Letter Arts Review’s 2019 annual juried issue, and in 500 Handmade Books, Volume II.

A passion for the environment and sustainability inspires her creative process. Renée is an active member of the Haiku Poets of Northern California and the Wellspring Poets, and a practicing psychotherapist. She enjoys performing her poetry live to the accompaniment of her musician husband on shakuhachi, guitar, mandolin and harmonica. Weekends, she can be found hiking the wilds near their Northern California home.

Awards and Other Honors:

Numerous

Books Published:

This One Life (Backbones Press, forthcoming 2020) - haiku & haibun; Scent of the Past ... Imperfect (Two Autumns Press, 2016) - Editor, anthology; Alone On A Wild Coast (Snapshot Press, 2014) - haiku & haibun; Blossoms (Pig Blossom Press, 2009) - haiku.

sand dunes
by morning
a different dream

a steady stream
of fences
refugee moon

rising seas
a single shorebird
in last light

night cicadas
all through the hours
if only if only

this one life 
I move the sparrow 
to higher ground

what I will miss . . .
the tips of pines
against a blue sky

Credits:

“sand dunes” – 3rd Place, HSA Henderson Haiku Contest, 2015; “a steady stream“ – Modern Haiku vol. 48.2, Summer 2017; “rising seas“ – Acorn Issue #39, Fall 2017; “night cicadas“ – Frogpond vol. 34.1, Winter 2011; “this one life“ – Acorn, Issue #28, Spring 2012; “what I will miss“ – A New Resonance: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku, Red Moon Press 2011 (eds. Dee Evetts & Jim Kacian).