Author Description

The poems in The Ghost Owl Says Go Now focus on place, specifically the vast American landscape from California to Key West and points in between. Guided by the wandering spirit of Bashō, some of the travel poems in this collection are wistful; others reflect on harsh realities experienced under the spell of wanderlust. Along the way, there are encounters with a variety of people-neighbors, relatives, strangers-that might be described as instances of synchronicity: encounters that seemingly offer significance beyond the random. Still other poems take their cues from cultural manifestations of Americana: music, artwork, literature, film. In this collection of poems, Stephen Benz continues his probing explorations into the topographies of Americana.