About

History

Born in South Shields, Rowan was raised by a punk and a hippy in a council estate in Hebburn. Showing an interest in poetry from an early age, he went on to study English Literature at Newcastle University and graduated with honours in 2011.

In 2014 Rowan made North East Rising, a show of performance poetry about his love/hate relationship with his home town. The show was directed by Kate Fox and the script and published poems were edited by Kirsten Luckins. Touring regional theatres, North East Rising sold-out at Northern Stage and was given a 4 star review from the Journal.

At the start of 2015 Rowan became an Associate Artist for Live Theatre, along with Matt Miller and Matilda Niell. Together they wrote Red is the New Blue, a spoken word play about space travel. That same year, Rowan also won the Great Northern Slam at Northern Stage.

In 2016 Rowan co-devised and starred in a short film for Channel 4’s Random Acts. In 2017 he was invited to give a TEDx Talk on Door-to-Door Poetry in The Hague; he also wrote and starred in another short film for Roundhouse Pictures, which went on to win a One-Reeler Award for Best Documentary.

In 2018 Rowan was commissioned to write a poem by Radio 3’s ‘The Verb’, which was described by Ian McMillan as “A heartfelt plea for poetry.”

In 2020, the National Trust invited Rowan to be poet in residence at William Wordsworth’s childhood home. The poems he wrote as part of this were published in Hopeless Romantic (National Trust, 2022). The book was described as “A work of gentle humour and great insight”- Megan Pattie, the Poetry Book Society.

In October 2022, Rowan was the sole ‘entertainment’ at the annual dinner of the Northern Society of Chartered Accountants.

In 2023 Rowan was commissioned by Redhills Durham Miners Hall to write a poem for the Durham Miner’s Gala. The resulting piece, ‘Way Past Tamagotchis’, was performed on the main stage at the Gala that year.

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Door-to-Door Poetry

Rowan became the world’s first Door-to-Door Poet in October 2015. Knocking on strangers’ doors, he asked what was important to them; he then went away and wrote a poem about this, free of charge, before bringing it back and performing it on their doorstep. Through this bold and arguably stupid act, he was trying to prove anyone can enjoy poetry and that strangers aren’t as scary as they’re made out to be. Rowan blogged about everything that happened to him at www.doortodoorpoetry.com

Ignoring the advice of friends and a local police officer, Rowan took the project to the Byker Wall, a working class neighbourhood with a bad reputation. Based on the success of this visit, he was invited to become a Tent-to-Tent Poet at Glastonbury Festival in 2016, which was reviewed in the Guardian.

Later that year, Rowan started an Arts Council funded tour of the concept around the North East. During this time, he visited an imam at a mosque in Fenham and went to Kingston Road in Stockton-on-Tees, the location for Channel 4’s controversial show Benefits Street. Soon after, BBC Breakfast broadcast a feature about the project. It was then covered by Radio 5 live, Steve Wright in the Afternoon and was named ‘Best of Today’ on Radio 4. The Breakfast feature was also broadcast by NPR in the US.

In 2019-2020 Rowan took the project all around England. He visited a total of 12 locations, including Moss Side in Manchester, the remote island of Lundy and Grantchester, which has the highest concentration of Nobel Prize winners in the world. As he was delivering his final poems in Jaywick, Essex, the UK went into lockdown as a response to the Covid-19 epidemic.

Rowan wrote a show about the project in 2023. A mixture of theatre and spoken word, Door-to-Door Poetry: Nationwide was directed by Peader Kirk. It toured to 20 venues across the UK and was described as “Ingenious” by BBC Radio Scotland and “Absolutely riveting” by punk poet legend Attila the Stockbroker.

A book about the project, The Door-to-Door Poet, will be published by Eye Books in September 2025. A show about the project has been commissioned by BBC Radio 4 and is set for broadcast the following month.