Owen Everard James

Brackets: a Book of Poems in Which We Are Defined by Our Choices and Directed by Their Consequences. Owen Everard James 1. izdevums

Brackets addresses a number of perplexing existential issues. These include questions surrounding patriotism and citizenship, the possibility of nuclear catastrophe and attempts to understand the self and our shared existence. In the end, and not surprisingly, there appears to be many more questions than answers. In some inexplicable way however, some questions are themselves clearly suggestive of the very answers they seek. The relationship between our questions and answers is as direct as the relationship between our choices and their consequences. We may deny but cannot avoid the inescapability of choice and consequence. These are the brackets within which we all live our lives. We are presented with innumerable choices. These choices and their inevitable, attending consequences create numerous, often obscure, alternative personal futures for all of us. Absent choice and consequence, we become robots with no will of our own. On this basis, good and evil, morality, law, justice and salvation, without exception, become at best moot and at worst invalid.