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y separately published work icon The Tour single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 2023... 2023 The Tour
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'This book-length verse narrative is about a so-called ‘Dirty T-Shirt Tour’, on which a group of Australian poets travel to cities in the United States and Canada in the mid-1980s,to give readings. It is composed as a diary, written from the point of view of one of the poets, who finds himself at odds with the others by virtue of his migrant background, and his commitment to ‘performance’ poetry. It is his first visit to America, which he views with both wonder and alarm. Isolated in the group by his commitment to a poetics of ‘utterance’, he finds friendship and acclamation in his audiences and the people he encounters on the street. The tensions portrayed extend beyond the group to encompass issues of racism, sexism and class, as the book offers snapshots of American society, as viewed by the outsider, which are in themselves an expression of his performance poetic. The Tour stands as a chronicle of thed ifficulties and triumphs of performance poetry, of which Pi.O. was one of the pioneers, long before it became the popular form it is today,' (Publication summary) 

Notes

  • A novel in verse form.
  • Author's note: 

    dedicated to

    Laura Hope-Gill

    who wanted to hear the story

    from go to whoa

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Artarmon, North Sydney - Lane Cove area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Giramondo Publishing , 2023 .
      image of person or book cover 2735103040057107658.jpg
      This image has been sourced from NewSouth Books
      Extent: 160p.
      Note/s:
      •  Published August 2023

      ISBN: 9781922725769

Works about this Work

Australia in Three Books : Π.O. Elese Dowden , 2024 single work review
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2024; Meanjin , March vol. 83 no. 1 2024; (p. 52-57)

— Review of Heide TT. O , 2019 selected work poetry ; Fitzroy : The Biography TT. O , 2015 selected work poetry ; The Tour TT. O , 2023 single work novel
'Though known by his business cards as a famous poet, π.O. is foremost an anarchist landscape artist working against the sanitised tradition of the state-sanctioned pastoral (an institution that makes colonial settlement possible).' (Introduction)
Getting Shirty Lucy Van , 2024 single work review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , February 2024;

— Review of The Tour TT. O , 2023 single work novel

'It’s a classic. It feels good. I’m talking about a poem. And I’m talking about a t-shirt. What’s a t-shirt? A t-shirt is something an Australian poet on an international tour with three others might wear. A t-shirt is something an Australian poet on tour with three others might wear and wash, or refuse to wash; might refuse to stop wearing. I’m talking about π.O.’s tour t-shirt. I’m talking about π.O.’s dirty t-shirt tour, which materialises here, four decades later, as the chronicle-in-verse called The Tour.'  (Introduction)  

Eyewash, Irreverence and a Bruce Springsteen Concert : On the Road with a Pioneering Performance Poet Craig Billingham , 2023 single work review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 13 November 2023;

— Review of The Tour TT. O , 2023 single work novel
'Scrape the Side!' : Π.O. in America Francesca Sasnaitis , 2023 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , November no. 459 2023; (p. 36)

— Review of The Tour TT. O , 2023 single work novel

'In 1985, five (or four, depending on the source) Australian poets went on a sixteen-city reading tour of the United States and Canada. Π.O. was one of them. Originally titled ‘The Dirty T-Shirt Tour’, The Tour is ostensibly Π.O.’s diary of that trip, the dirty T-shirt standing for the narrator’s ‘difference’: his migrant, working-class background; his flouting of social conventions; his ‘performance poet’ status. While the other poets are (repeatedly) washing and ironing in their rooms, he is out walking the streets, making astute observations, meeting interesting people. Π.O. names the well-known poets and lesser entities he befriends and the famous poets he doesn’t meet – the disreputable T-shirt given as one reason for his exclusion – but he omits the identities of the poets on the tour and the tour organisers.'  (Introduction)          

Π.O. The Tour Andy Jackson , 2023 single work review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 16-22 September 2023;

— Review of The Tour TT. O , 2023 single work novel

'Π.O.’s two most recent books were epic in scope and heft. Fitzroy: The Biography was a sprawling history of the Melbourne suburb; Heide, a kaleidoscopic account of art-making and patronage. Both books wielded dizzying accumulations of disparate, sometimes incredible, facts and stories against monolithic authority.' (Introduction)   

Π.O. The Tour Andy Jackson , 2023 single work review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 16-22 September 2023;

— Review of The Tour TT. O , 2023 single work novel

'Π.O.’s two most recent books were epic in scope and heft. Fitzroy: The Biography was a sprawling history of the Melbourne suburb; Heide, a kaleidoscopic account of art-making and patronage. Both books wielded dizzying accumulations of disparate, sometimes incredible, facts and stories against monolithic authority.' (Introduction)   

'Scrape the Side!' : Π.O. in America Francesca Sasnaitis , 2023 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , November no. 459 2023; (p. 36)

— Review of The Tour TT. O , 2023 single work novel

'In 1985, five (or four, depending on the source) Australian poets went on a sixteen-city reading tour of the United States and Canada. Π.O. was one of them. Originally titled ‘The Dirty T-Shirt Tour’, The Tour is ostensibly Π.O.’s diary of that trip, the dirty T-shirt standing for the narrator’s ‘difference’: his migrant, working-class background; his flouting of social conventions; his ‘performance poet’ status. While the other poets are (repeatedly) washing and ironing in their rooms, he is out walking the streets, making astute observations, meeting interesting people. Π.O. names the well-known poets and lesser entities he befriends and the famous poets he doesn’t meet – the disreputable T-shirt given as one reason for his exclusion – but he omits the identities of the poets on the tour and the tour organisers.'  (Introduction)          

Eyewash, Irreverence and a Bruce Springsteen Concert : On the Road with a Pioneering Performance Poet Craig Billingham , 2023 single work review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 13 November 2023;

— Review of The Tour TT. O , 2023 single work novel
Getting Shirty Lucy Van , 2024 single work review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , February 2024;

— Review of The Tour TT. O , 2023 single work novel

'It’s a classic. It feels good. I’m talking about a poem. And I’m talking about a t-shirt. What’s a t-shirt? A t-shirt is something an Australian poet on an international tour with three others might wear. A t-shirt is something an Australian poet on tour with three others might wear and wash, or refuse to wash; might refuse to stop wearing. I’m talking about π.O.’s tour t-shirt. I’m talking about π.O.’s dirty t-shirt tour, which materialises here, four decades later, as the chronicle-in-verse called The Tour.'  (Introduction)  

Australia in Three Books : Π.O. Elese Dowden , 2024 single work review
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2024; Meanjin , March vol. 83 no. 1 2024; (p. 52-57)

— Review of Heide TT. O , 2019 selected work poetry ; Fitzroy : The Biography TT. O , 2015 selected work poetry ; The Tour TT. O , 2023 single work novel
'Though known by his business cards as a famous poet, π.O. is foremost an anarchist landscape artist working against the sanitised tradition of the state-sanctioned pastoral (an institution that makes colonial settlement possible).' (Introduction)
Last amended 30 Aug 2023 11:17:15
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