Overview

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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Reviews

'A piece of art!' -M Sheridan Desmond, Blooming in Graves & The Garden Eternal 'Vivid, brave and propulsive ... Don't call yourself a Melburnian until you've read The Street Poet!' -Fotoula Reynolds, Kairós & Silhouettes 'Thanks for putting me in your book!' -Turtle (Craig) 'The first thing you'll notice when opening this book is just how eclectic and aesthetically pleasing it is ... It's unashamedly strange and experimental, heralding the arrival of a writer that has found his voice ... Everything is fact/everything is fiction/everything is frantic. It's a real rush to read ... Unabashedly punk and underground, full of heart and humour.' -Beau Windon, Jax Paperweight and the Neon Starway 'I've got this kid's voice in my head ... The Street Poet will age lovingly and touch the hearts and minds and squashed desires of born artists for generations. It seeks the voices of everyone who reads it. Beckons them off the couch, out of comfort, into the streets, into humanity, to play with the gifts of perception and conversation, of integrity and fear.' -James Alfred Podhorodecki, Stayin' Alive in Channel Country '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? Jaidyn gives us an answer: we wait, we watch, we listen.' -Amelia Joy, All Summer Long 'Jaidyn takes us on the wildest of rides through locked-down Melbourne. Gritty, honest and not for the faint of heart, The Street Poet is writing at its most immediate. Having followed Jaidyn and his band of literary brethren on social media as they took poetry directly to their city, I lapped up his chronicle of this unprecedented period.' -Benjamin Dodds, Airplane Baby Banana Blanket & Ease of Eggs 'I worked in Melbourne's CBD for a decade ... and the way Jaidyn has managed to capture it all in this book is exactly as I remember it. You may not be an anxious, paranoid poet, but maybe that's why Johnny/Jaidyn sees things so much more clearly than others who've written about this city. Melbourne is beautiful and shiny on the outside, but when you dig down, it's gritty, defiant, industrious and resilient, and that's because of the people who are hidden away behind the shiny facade.' -Jess Carey, Melbourne: 363 Days in Lockdown '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 ... The Street Poet is needed not only in the poetry world but the literary one ... ' -Emma Woodhead, Notes from the Library Podcast '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 & Eye Contact 'Made me feel nostalgic. As people, we generally want each other to be happy, but we love reading about nice, good, juicy, shit lives. And perhaps the purpose of a person's shit life is to merely be heard by the omnipresent street poet, Johnny Lock.' -Lucas Modzelewski, Raving at the Big Bad & Tearful Creator

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