The Friday Poem Review: Moon Jellyfish Can Barely Swim by Ness Owen

Watch how we glow

Karen Smith reviews Moon Jellyfish Can Barely Swim by Ness Owen (Parthian, 2023)

“The energy that glows sublimely through Owen’s work has transformative potential… the work is rhythmical and strong, with sensitive, sensual portraits of the power of seawater… Encircled by the rugged waters of the Anglesey coast, Owen lands her poems “between lecturing and farming”. In the short interview at the back of the book, she summons the power of the writing process “to remember, or to try to understand”. In her hands, the poem-vessel drops anchor against dissolution and breakdown. Her hymn to the jellyfish launches us into waters of political unrest, merging environmental, familial, national and linguistic currents. I will remember the watery wisdom of their desultory radiance in ‘How we glow’:

We are braver than

we know. Even in

the smallest light

watch how we glow.”

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