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The Street Poet
Paperback
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ISBN13: 9780645702729
Publisher: Back Shed Press
Published: Apr 15 2026
Pages: 360
Weight: 0.70
Height: 0.90 Width: 5.06 Depth: 7.81
Language: English
poetry / verse-novel / urban fiction
Poetry bleeds from brick walls. Protesters choke the roads.
Prophets howl on street corners. Needles glitter in the gutters.
This is 21st-century Melbourne.
JOHNNY LOCK is fragile, sheltered, wary of his own shadow. He yearns to write poetry but has nothing to write about-because he never leaves the house. The world is too loud for him. Too real. Then he meets JAY: a travelling street writer on a mission to tell stories about Melbourne. Jay offers Johnny one brutal, liberating piece of advice: do the things that terrify you most. Overthrow The Fear. Talk to strangers. Watch. Listen. Let the city speak.
As Johnny brands himself a 'street poet', his world cracks open and his metamorphosis begins. He drifts through train stations and alleyways, colliding with the forgotten strangers of the city. The lost, the intoxicated, the down-and-out dreamers. His words give them grace, perhaps even salvation, in having their stories told. Their voices bleed into his own. Observation becomes confession.
From drunken train-rides to inner-city chaos, THE STREET POET is a fevered coming-of-age portrait of a young man, a poet on the edge, unravelling and remaking himself in a turbulent city. This honest collection of typewritten poetry and jagged vignettes captures Melbourne in all its beautiful contradictions: hot and cold, romantic and rotten, sensible and bizarre. Part love letter, part manifesto, part scream into the night.
From the co-author of THERE'S A TALE TO THIS CITY
Unabashedly punk and underground, full of heart and humour.
Beau Windon, Jax Paperweight and the Neon Starway
Dark and cutting, yet intimate and beautiful. This writing weirds you out yet draws you in. You can't look away.
Cameron Liang, Viral Stories and Eye Contact
The Street Poet is needed in not only the poetry world but the literary one ... Filled with the good, the bad, and the ugly of everyday life, we experience the stories of strangers in the city, but also the personal odyssey of a writer struggling with the ups and downs of life, while blossoming into someone extraordinary.
- Emma Woodhead, Notes from the Library Podcast
The Street Poet thrusts us into the hypnotic syncopation of the city and grapples with the ebb and flow, the unpredictability and impermanence of the streets, its art and life. And ultimately it asks, how do we cope with the fear of the unknown? Attard gives us an answer: we wait, we watch, we listen.
Amelia Joy, All Summer Long
A piece of art!
M Sheridan Desmond, Blooming in Graves and The Garden Eternal
First published in 2023.
This new edition published in 2026 featuring new poems and artworks.
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