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Poetry by Rowan Evans

Tag: writing poetry

  • Translating What I Feel | A Poem About Creativity, Emotion, and the Writing Process

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This poem began with an image.

    Not a line. Not a metaphor.

    An image.

    A single figure standing alone, staring into the distance like the opening shot of a film.

    At first, the poem exists entirely outside the body. The speaker is observed rather than understood. We see the wind. The trees. The dirt beneath their feet. We hear a voice describing loneliness from a distance.

    Then the question arrives:

    “Is that the truth or the depression talking?”

    For me, that’s the moment the camera moves.

    The poem stops observing the speaker and starts inhabiting them.

    Everything before that question is external.

    Everything after it is internal.

    The scenery gives way to self-examination. The loneliness becomes less important than the act of interrogating it. The poem begins pulling apart its own construction, examining how emotions become images and how images eventually become language.

    In many ways, this piece accidentally became a poem about my entire creative process.

    I’ve spent twenty-three years translating feelings into words.

    Not just the dramatic emotions. Not just love, grief, or heartbreak.

    Everything.

    The strange moments. The passing thoughts. The questions that linger longer than they should.

    The title came from that realization.

    Because that’s what poetry has always felt like to me.

    Translation.

    An emotion enters one side of the mind.

    An image emerges from the other.

    And somewhere in between, a poem happens.

    — Rowan Evans

    A solitary poet stands by the shoreline at dusk as ink transforms into waves and moonlight, symbolizing emotions becoming poetry.
    Every poem begins as a feeling before it becomes a language.

    Translating What I Feel
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I stand, staring into the distance,
    alone in this instance—
    it’s just me and the breeze,
    running through the trees.

    I can feel cold dirt and stone
    beneath my feet.

    Wind brushes skin,
    feather-light
    like finger tips—
    it reminds me
    of how alone I am.

    Is that the truth
    or the depression talking?

    Because sometimes
    I feel alone
    when there are people
    around me.

    That last stanza
    moved like the tide.

    A long line—
    followed by one shorter,
    then longer again.

    Even when I don’t say it,
    the ocean imagery arrives.
    I don’t even have to try—
    it just pours out of me,
    like a dam breaking.

    Everything held back,
    rushes forth as the pen
    hits the page.

    You get the opening lines,
    that’s where the truth slips.
    Mid-stanza
    is where the truth sits.
    Then one or two lines
    to really make the truth hit.

    You see—
    this is the creative side of me.
    I feel something then translate it
    inside of me,
    from data to image
    then I spit it in ink on the page.

    I’ve spent 23 years
    translating what I feel—
    love, loneliness and rage…

    happiness and pain.

    Two sides of the coin,
    they’re different
    but the same.

    So there I stood…

    staring into the distance,
    unsure if I was alone in that instance—
    it was just me and the thoughts
    running through my mind.

    Slowly being translated
    into poetic lines.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [Where Music Becomes Weather]
    Some songs feel like storms. Others feel like shelter. Where Music Becomes Weather explores how music shapes emotion, memory, and the landscapes we carry within us.

    [Returning to My Bones]
    Some dreams fade the moment we wake. Others leave behind emotions that linger long after reality returns. Returning to My Bones explores the strange grief of leaving a dream that felt real enough to matter.

    [Recognizes Home]
    A free-verse poem exploring the difference between love as dependency and love as choice. It challenges the idea that love must be need-based, instead centering the quiet strength of choosing someone while still remaining whole on your own.

    If you’re interested in more poetry, you can find it here → [The Library of Ashes]

  • Ink as a Second Mouth | Poetry About Writing, Identity & Becoming

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This piece comes from the space where speech and writing don’t quite align.

    There has always been a kind of delay for me—between what I think, what I feel, and what I can actually say out loud. Spoken language has never felt like the most reliable place for truth to land. It slips. It fractures. It gets filtered through hesitation, timing, or silence.

    Writing became something different.

    Not a replacement for speech, but a translation of it.

    A second mouth.

    One that doesn’t hesitate in the same way.

    One that doesn’t need to arrive perfectly formed in real time.

    Over time, I’ve come to understand my writing less as expression and more as continuity—a way of carrying versions of myself forward that might otherwise get lost between changes, growth, or silence. When I talk about shedding “lives like shells,” it isn’t about abandoning who I was, but making space for who I’m becoming.

    Writing is where those versions remain visible.

    Where they don’t disappear just because I’ve outgrown them.

    In that sense, this isn’t just about communication—it’s about survival through articulation. Not in the dramatic sense, but in the quiet one: staying connected to myself through language when voice doesn’t fully bridge the gap.

    And if spoken language is the place where I sometimes fall short of myself, then writing is where I learn how to keep translating who I am anyway.

    — Rowan Evans

    A writer sitting beside scattered handwritten pages and spilled ink in a dimly lit room.
    If spoken language is where I fall short of myself, then writing is how I keep translating who I am anyway.

    Ink as a Second Mouth
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    There is a delay
    between my mind
    and my mouth
    when I speak—

    that’s why I find
    it easier to talk in ink.

    I turned my pen
    into my mouth,
    so when I write
    it’s the only time—
    the truth spills through.

    When I open my mouth,
    my words won’t come out—

    but in ink, they run
    like the secrets slip
    from loose lips.

    I could write poem after poem,
    leaving piece after piece of me behind—
    scattered across the pages,
    like versions of me scattered
    across different lives.

    But do not mourn
    for what I’ve lost,
    because it’s simply the cost
    of me being me.

    I shed past lives,
    it leaves room for me to grow—

    just a hermit crab
    in human form.

    And I’ll continue
    to shed lives like shells until
    I find the version of myself—

    that can speak
    in more than ink.

    Until then I’ll continue to try,
    because growth comes slow.
    It’s gradual, it never comes clear.

    There are no definable lines—
    only slow becoming.

    If you’re interested in more poetry, you can find it here → [The Library of Ashes]

  • Sprawling Thoughts – A Poem About Writing, Confession, and Survival

    Rowan Evans

    ✦ Author’s Note ✦

    These words spill like blood and ink. They explore fear, shame, and the weight of confession. Step forward only if you feel steady.

    Your breath, your life, and your heart are sacred. If these words stir difficult feelings, pause, breathe, and reach for light, support, or care. You are never truly alone in the dark.

    Resources if needed:

    US: 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline – Call or text 988 | https://988lifeline.org

    UK: Samaritans – Call 116 123 | https://www.samaritans.org

    Australia: Lifeline – Call 13 11 14 | https://www.lifeline.org.au

    Canada: Talk Suicide Canada – Call 1-833-456-4566 | https://talksuicide.ca

    Global: Befrienders Worldwide – https://www.befrienders.org

    An open notebook on a dark desk, ink spreading across the page like constellations, lit by a single candle in a shadowed room.
    Where ink becomes confession and scars learn how to shine.

    Sprawling Thoughts
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I put the pen to paper
    like a gun to my head.
    Pull the trigger,
    write the first line—
    watch the ink splatter,
    like brain matter—
    as thoughts sprawl,
    and crawl
    across
    the page.

    This is what
    confession feels like,
    when I write.
    I pour
    my heart out
    on the page.
    The fear and shame,
    I give it shape,
    I give it a name.

    I dance with my demons,
    and map my scars
    like astronomers
    mapping stars.

    If you’re interested in more poetry, you can find it here → [The Library of Ashes]