Mark Antony Owen didn’t just abandon free verse, he staged a quiet rebellion against it. His poetic evolution began not with form in the traditional sense, but with a deeper commitment to structure of his own devising. “The evolution of my poetry probably began when I rejected free verse and embraced structure,” he explains, “albeit a structure that revolves around forms of my own devising.” It wasn’t about obeying a tradition, it was about inventing a space where his voice could actually breathe.
The pivotal moment came with the poem Nothing the hedgerows say. For the first time, he says, “I wasn’t content to dash something off with minimal editing.” There was a shift, something in the poem asked for craft, and for once, he was willing to answer. “I had the feeling this piece needed craft, and I was ready to invest the time and creative energy necessary to produce something I could feel proud of.” Since then, Owen hasn’t looked back. His writing has become less about expression and more about engineering—tightening, refining, holding back.
And though his poems may take years to finish, the initial spark often comes in a single hit. “Drafting happens quickly,” he says. “Rarely do I get a line or scrap then sit on it for months before adding another slice of inspired text.” Once he’s got an entry point, a title, a closing line, an image, he chases it until there’s something whole on the page. But, he’s quick to point out, “complete does not mean finished.” The editing is a slow grind. “The editing process is glacial by comparison – a marathon, filmed in slow motion.”
The content of his poetry is stripped from his own lived experience, and he doesn’t dance around that fact. “The very first piece of writing advice I ever read was ‘Write about what you know’. I’ve done precisely that my whole career,” he says. That ‘knowing’ is rooted in what he calls subrural life, the off-grid, in-between places that don’t make the postcards. “The people, the places, the experiences had in various subrural settings, these are all raw materials for my poetry.” But it’s never just reportage. “Toss in memories (which may or may not be reliable), some observations of the natural world, plus some crude allusions to mythology or the Judeo-Christian religions,” he adds, “and what you have is a strange banquet which, in my head at least, makes some sort of sense.”
Despite the deliberate architecture of his finished poems, Owen never writes under ideal conditions. “Poetry doesn’t come to me just because I’m sat at my writing desk,” he admits. “It’s not an artform that keeps business hours.” The muse is more of a heckler, showing up during Zoom meetings, or mid-supermarket run. “I’ll get an intriguing opening line or image in my head right before a work Zoom call… or overhear something outside the supermarket and forget to pick up four items I was meant to buy.” That kind of interruption isn’t inspiration, it’s intrusion. “The more I think about it,” he laughs, “the more convinced I become that poetry can be a bit of a pain in the arse at times.”
And while his poetry touches on personal territory, trauma, failed connections, it’s never written for therapeutic release. “Poetry isn’t my therapist,” he states plainly. “But as a means to unpack past trauma or explore aspects of difficult relationships, it’s definitely cheaper than a shrink.” He doesn’t write for catharsis, and when he tries, the work falls flat. “If I set out intending to delve deeper into my own psyche via the medium of a poem, I’m probably not going to uncover any profound truths by the time the piece is finished. What’s more likely is that I’ll just bin the thing.”
You’ll find Mark Antony Owen’s work under the banner of Subruria, both a concept and a website, a world he’s building poem by poem, on his own terms. It’s not mainstream, but it’s not trying to be. Like the hedgerows he writes about, it’s there on the edge of things, alive with voices if you know how to listen.
