Author(s): Rowan Evans

Poetry

SHORTLISTED FOR THE FELIX DENNIS PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST COLLECTION 2023

An award-winning poet explodes the notion of translation, showing us the poem in a supple, malleable form

'Formally inventive, rich in aslant borrowings, unafraid of visual and textual experiment, it is an exhilarating debut' Guardian

The poems at the centre of A Method, A Path explore the turbulent transmission of historical and mythic voices that 'reach across' time and place, and a fierce rejection of the nationalist ideologies that have sought to 'island' them. Here, translation is a lived and open-ended negotiation, invested in the potential for magic utterance and ritual action in spite of language's violence: 'words / tear their wing bones / and grow new heads / in the wound ('On Eglond'). Each poem or sequence gathers around a different instance of dialogue or communication with others: with other voices and languages, with other authors and found texts, with other species. They also mark a record of Evans' interdisciplinary collaboration with other artists and performers through his work both as writer and sound artist.

The physical and textual landscapes of the book move from the flooded and wooded terrains of Somerset and East Anglia, to the burnt hills of Andalusia in the company of Federico Garcia Lorca, the poems always inhabiting a place between Evans' own words and external voices - whether via translation, haunting, or invocation. In this 'tirelessly inventive, substantial collection of vivid lyrical work' (Denise Riley, Eric Gregory Awards), the truant strangeness of the more-than-human world is made present in its ability to warp and transform the poet's voice, where 'even the ground under your feet is a fluid, malleable surface' (Kayo Chingonyi).