Rowan Evans: Translating Bird Calls

Continuing the Technecast’s miniseries on Nature, we hear from the poet, composer, sound artist and techne PhD researcher Rowan Evans. He introduces a recording of a poetic performance that recounts an instructional sequence about translating bird calls through Old English, which was recording running through Leigh Woods in Bristol. We then spoke to Rowan about the methodology of absurdity, magic and play; his doctoral research on contemporary poetic encounters with early medieval languages; and about the epistemological limits of language to contain non-human nature. We hope you enjoy!Rowan Evans is a poet, composer and sound artist. His most recent chapbook is The Last Verses of Beccán (Guillemot Press, 2019), which won the Michael Marks Award for poetry. He received an Eric Gregory Award in 2015 and a selection of his work appears in Penguin Modern Poets 7: These Hard and Shining Things (Penguin, 2018). Rowan is editor of Moot Press and artistic co-director of the performance company FEN. He is currently undertaking practice-based PhD research in modern poetry and early medieval language at Royal Holloway, University of London.rowan-evans.com