Kalliope X Speaks, by the Kalliope X Collective (2024)

Browsing Brunswick Bound I stumbled on not just this collection of poetry, but a whole suite of Greek-Australian Press. I didn’t realise how active the scene here was and hope to better engage with it! Anyway, I’m thankful that I picked up Kalliope X Speaks and enjoyed the variety and tone of the content. The collection presented poetry, fiction by mostly multicultural Australian writers (particularly Greek-Australian) and broadly touched on identity.

My favourite pieces were ‘All the young dudes’ by George Mouratidis. This piece playfully contrasted young adult masculinity of Anglo-cultured university students with that of second gen traditional Greek-Australians. It also completely floored me with its surprising account of soccer at the Olympic Village! I also enjoyed pi-o’s work which was the most experimental of the collection, playing with language rather than exploring identity, interplaying Greek and English words and letters, it was fun – and surprisingly for me – more accessible than the other more conventional pi-o extracts that I have read.