About

a woodpecker’s thuds
quickly repeated trickle
t h r o u g h w o o d e n d i s t a n c e

Mark Goodwin

Conceived by the artist Paul Evans and co-curated with Brian Lewis of Longbarrow Press, Call & Response brings together haiku poetry by 10 writers: Angelina Ayers, Matthew Clegg, Abigail Flint, Mark Goodwin, Rob Hindle, Chris Jones, Fay Musselwhite, Mary Marken, Andrew Myers and Ruth Palmer.

All of these poems are inspired by the mysterious beauty of bird calls and songs.

Haiku poetry is the ideal form in which to express this natural phenomenon. Limited to a number of syllables and lines, haiku comprise small, compact parcels of information – much, in fact, like birdsong – creating rhythmical word pictures that have the power to stir emotions, particularly when evoking the passage of the seasons.

Each day from 20-30 September 2012 we will be posting two new haiku poems on Twitter (@Callhaiku). Recordings of the poets reading each haiku will be simultaneously uploaded to our SoundCloud site. Over the course of 11 days this will build into a cumulative dawn chorus of surprising lyrical invention and beauty.

Call & Response is one of a series of creative collaborations between Paul Evans and Professor Tim Birkhead from the University of Sheffield Department of Animal and Plant Sciences. These collaborative works will feature as part of the University of Sheffield Festival of the Mind.

The Festival of the Mind is a collaboration between the City and the University of Sheffield which showcases its cultural strengths. The Festival will run from 20-30 September 2012. For more information please go to http://festivalofthemind.group.shef.ac.uk (and follow on Twitter: @FestivalMind). There are over 30 free activities and events which will be open to the public during the Festival of the Mind: performances, talks, cultural events, exhibitions and public demonstrations.

A sliver of moon,
breeze whispering with the trees,
owl calls haunt the night.

Mary Marken

Call & Response bird image by Paul Evans
Haiku edited and sequenced by Brian Lewis
Recordings by Brian Lewis
Web design and management by Brian Lewis
Twitter feed by Brian Lewis

One Comment

  1. Just stumbled upon this via Twitter. This sounds like a fascinating project. I’m looking forward to hearing the accumulation!

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