Poetry forthcoming 27th Feb 2025

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).

To read Naming the Trees is to accompany Ness Owen on her ritual routes around Anglesey and North Wales: relearning fascination, treasuring language and the interconnectedness of place and person, bloom and decay, week after sacred week, season after precarious season.

Glyn Edwards

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.

Review by Ewan Smith on Good Reads.

13/03/2025 7pm online. Free tickets from OutSavvy including a preview of Afonydd

Poetry/wildlife walk with North Wales Wildlife Trust in Penrhos 21/03/2025 POSTPONED (because everything to do with Penrhos is problematic – we hope to announce a new date soon)

Poetry/wildlife walk with North Wales Wildlife Trust in Nantporth forest Bangor – 11/04/2025 11am – 1pm just turn up: details for access to the site