Pi O
П. O. is a Greek-Australian, working class, anarchist poet.
Biography
Born in Katerini, Greece, in 1951, П. O.'s family moved to Australia around 1955. They settled in Fitzroy after several months in a Bonegilla migrant camp.П. O. was inspired to start writing poetry in 1973 when he heard Johnny Cash reciting 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.
П. O. won the 2020 Judith Wright Calanthe Prize for Poetry for Heide at the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards. He is a finalist for the 2021 Melbourne Prize for Literature. In 2024 he won the Patrick White Literary Award.
Works
Fitzroy brothel: Poems Emotions in concrete street singer л. 0. Revisited Panash Missing Form: Concrete, visual and experimental poems The Fitzroy poems 24 hrs: The day the language stood still The Number Poems and Other Equations Big Numbers: New and Selected Poems Fitzroy: The Biography Heide The TourEditedMissing Forms with Peter Murphy and Alex Selenitsch
- ''Off the Record''