Joachim Matschoss

Sidewalk Theatre Joachim Matschoss

I have been led through familiar cities, glimpsed moments from the lives of strangers and caught fragments of their overheard conversations. But these are more than poetic snapshots of contemporary life. These poems are imbued with disdain for privilege and compassion for those without it. Every now and then the poet turns his gaze upon himself evoking places he has been and moments he has lived. This juxtaposition between the lives of strangers and the deeply personal captures something very true about travelling, and about living. Through the lives of strangers, we are reminded of past intimacies and the things and people we have lost. Andrew Bovell, playwright, Australia. In theatre each character you meet is teetering on the edge of catastrophe. This is a collection of poems about the dangers of that precipice, but it is not the characters in the poems scattered all over the world whom you fear for the most. It is the one sitting behind the words who, sometimes, shockingly, shows itself above the parapets and makes your 'fat red heart' break. Tom Holloway, playwright, Australia. I am mesmerized by the intimacy the poems capture in these lyrical scenarios. It is as though I am eavesdropping on these characters' most private thoughts and ways of being. Thomas Kellogg, playwright, USA.