Pi O

File:Pio revisited.jpg

Pi O, cover of л. o. Revisited

П. O. (or Pi O, born 1951) is a Greek-Australian, working class, anarchist, poet.

Born in Katerini, Greece, П. O. came to Australia with his family around 1954. After time in Bonegilla Migrant Reception and Training Centre, the family moved to the Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy.

П. O. was inspired to start writing poetry in 1970 when he heard Johnny Cash reciting (religious) poetry while tuning his guitar. П. O. thought he could do as well or better. His work ranges from standup-type rants to 'conceptual' page poetry and concrete poetry, with a heavy emphasis on wordplay and capturing the vitality of everyday speech. Thematically, he commonly portrays the issues of non-Anglo-Celtic working class life.

He has had numerous books published since his first, Fitzroy Brothel in 1974, more notably the epic verse novel 24hrs. From 1978 to 1983, he was involved in producing the radical poetry magazine 925. He is a fixture of Melbourne's performance poetry scene and has edited an anthology of performance poetry (Off the Record) for Penguin. His most recent book is Big Numbers: New and Selected Poems (2008). He currently edits the literary journal Unusual Work.

Bibliography

• Fitzroy brothel: Poems (1974)
• Emotions in concrete (1975)
• street singe (1976)
• л. 0. Revisited (Wild & Woolley, 1976) ISBN 0-909331-23-5
• Panash (Collective Effort, 1978)
• Missing Form: Concrete, visual and experimental poems (Collective Effort, 1981)
• The Fitzroy poems (Collective Effort, 1989)
• 24 hrs: The day the language stood still (Collective Effort, 1996) ISBN 0-646-26903-8
• The Number Poems and Other Equations (Collective Effort, 2000)
• Big Numbers: New and Selected Poems (Collective Effort, 2008) ISBN 978-0-9587726-6-2

Edited

• Missing Forms with Peter Murphy and Alex Selenitsch (Collective Effort, 1981)
• Off the Record (Penguin, 1985)

External links

• The Poetry of Π Ο
• Pi O - An appreciation by Billy Marshall Stoneking
• visual poetry
• Visual Poetry by PiO
• 925 magazine
• Pi O Launches Oink, Oink, Oink by Eric Dando
• The rime of the anarchist wog