1999 - Saloni Mediterranean

po

Born Greece 1951.
Arrived in Australia 1955.
Raised: Fitzroy! Sly grog gambling joints. Work as a Survey Draughtsman. Three years to go till retirement. I started in 1970. Began writing poetry after seeing Johnny Cash on TV trying to read a poem.

Thought I could do better. Edited Fitzrot magazine. Co-edited 925 magazine (workers’ magazine "for the workers by the workers to the workers about the workers’ work"). Helped inaugurate the Poets’ Union. I am philosophically an Anarchist. Have been described as an oral-literate amongst other things. Did a 16 city tour of the USA in 1985. Edited Off the Record (an anthology of performance and visual poetry in Australia), published by Penguin. Co-edited Missing Forms an anthology of visual and concrete poetry in Australia (1980). Co-wrote and performed in a play at the Sydney Wharf Call it Poetry Tonight (1990). Represented Australia at the International Poetry Festival in Medellin, Columbia 1998. Have appeared on ABC and SBS TV a number of times. Did two documentaries on ABC Radio National about the migrant riots at Bonegilla in 1952 and 1961. Have just completed (to be released this September) a biography of the Australian Dadaist poet, Jas H. Duke. Books of poetry include: Panash, The Fuck Poems, 24 Hours, The Fitzroy Poems and The Number Poems.

I wish to hell
I was born 100 years
from now

to read myself