![\"bill](\"http:\/\/www.meganix.net\/pavement\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/10k-ncP1090230X_Bissett.jpg\")
<\/a>bill bisset is an experimental Canadian poet whose work attracts both praise and controversy. This photo was taken in the carpark at Sydney Park, St Peters (2010).<\/p><\/div>\n
Pavement writers love poets, and poets love pavement writers. A blog about pavement graffiti might seem a prosaic sort of thing to write, but I am in good company. There are plenty of poets who have found inspiration in the marks on the paving. For poets these marks are associated with memories of childhood life, expressions of the inner life, the playing out of private life in public, and the sordidness of life in the gutter.<\/p>\n
Today I offer you a selection of some favourite works by Australian poets,\u00c2\u00a0and one song. These are only excerpts. (The photos are from my archives)<\/p>\n
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If we went back to school<\/p>\n
everything might seem small.<\/p>\n
We could begin again. Pick it up.<\/p>\n
Start over. Scribble initials<\/p>\n
in a chalky love-heart<\/p>\n
on melting asphalt<\/p>\n
or something concrete …<\/p>\n
Michael Brennan, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcPostcard\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/a>, from The imageless world<\/em> (2003)<\/strong><\/p>\n A back lane in Newtown (2008).<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n Tar flowers is what grows best in Newtown<\/p>\n Tar Flowers<\/p>\n in concrete gardens<\/p>\n where we draw our best pictures<\/p>\n with bits of tile that fell off Mrs. O’Leary’s toilet roof …<\/p>\n Terry Larsen, ‘Tar flowers’, The Union Recorder<\/em> (University of Sydney), 2 October 1969, p.49 (1969)<\/strong><\/p>\n Eternity Boy, Enmore (2001).<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n … ETERNITY he’d heard great preachers shout<\/p>\n And shook to hear, but say it he could not.<\/p>\n No, it must come like moonlight or like frost<\/p>\n Silent at night like mushrooms quietly growing<\/p>\n To wake the wicked and redeem the lost;<\/p>\n Like white feather in the dawn wind blowing,<\/p>\n Perfect and white, like copperplate in chalk …<\/p>\n And that was when Arthur Stace began to walk …<\/p>\n Douglas Stewart, ‘Arthur Stace’, (c.1969)<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Enmore back lane (2008).<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n … All writers wait in patience for the chance<\/p>\n to etch their names before the concrete sets<\/p>\n they know that galaxies are speeding further<\/p>\n apart, and faster: that deep space<\/p>\n is overcrowded, that dark matter<\/p>\n spills over into skies …<\/p>\n Gloria B. Yates, ‘Before the concrete sets’, The Mozzie<\/em> 10 (5), p.12 (2002)<\/strong><\/p>\n On the street where you live, Marrickville (2010).<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n So what I said is what I said<\/p>\n And what you said is what you meant<\/p>\n And when you left my house in the morning<\/p>\n You wrote your message on the cement<\/p>\n You put the letters and the numbers under people’s feet<\/p>\n You took all the dealings and feelings and wrote them on the street …<\/p>\n Megan Washington, ‘Cement’ on album I believe you, liar<\/em> (2010)<\/strong><\/p>\n Blood on the flagstones, King Street, Sydney (2011).<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n … The boy on drugs, his bandages slipping,<\/p>\n argues and pleads all day with the parking meters.<\/p>\n The filthy children of Christ lie on mattresses in the sun,<\/p>\n the pavement scrawled with graffiti, in excrement and blood …<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>