Ever wanted to throw away your Melways and navigate only by memory and heartache, history and nostalgia, lyricism and rhyme? Melbourne Poetry Map lets you do just that.
Active from 2010-2014, MPM : AG was an online poetry collection which launches a new Melbourne story as told by some of its leading spoken word artists and poets. These are maps to another Melbourne – by people who live and write here, people who leave their stories and their hopes like invisible murals on bleak city walls. With access to a computer and a portable music device, you can experience the city under the inspiration of some of its most passionate, perverse, political and poetic wordsmiths.
Created in 2010, and updated in 2011, the map curates a hyper-local experience of the Melbourne CBD and was produced by Eleanor Jackson with the support of the City of Melbourne and the Overload Poetry Festival. Featuring over 30 new and commissioned works, it provides a rich and evocative of contemporary Melbourne life.
The project has received beautiful feedback from media and members of the general public alike and has even been subject of a visual collaboration with the graphic design firm, ERD, who created a series of high-visibility Melbourne posters based on lines from works in the Melbourne Poetry Map.
Sophie of Elephant in the City moved to Melbourne from Paris and used the maps to orient herself to the soul of the city. Do check out her full response to the map, which is a beautiful summation of just how it feels to be getting lost and found with poets.
This is how we start to map a city: listening, reading, walking. Every map is a story or a poem. I haven’t lived in Melbourne long enough to acquire many stories of my own. But in the meantime, I’m happy to explore the city with its poets.
As Louise Southerden of the Sydney Morning Herald says,
Melbourne, I see you more clearly now. How do you feel about long-distance relationships?
While Tim Richards of The Age reflected after his “poetic romp”
it’s been a great walk, adding extra impact to the emotional power of poetry by placing the listener in the exact spot the poet is writing and speaking about.
[…] the variety of content neatly demonstrates the complexity of life in a big, vibrant city such as Melbourne.
Title: Melbourne Poetry Map
Producer: Eleanor Jackson
Details: Online collection of site-specific audio poetry walks featuring over 30 Australian spoken word artists
Supported by: City of Melbourne, Melbourne Overload Poetry Festival
Premiered: Overload Poetry Festival 2010
Web design: Mik Efford
Illustrations: Aron Hemingway
Audio Engineering: Dan West
Graphic Design: Studio Tweed
eleanor j jackson 