Murray Cox Book Launch
Murray Cox Book Launch
About 5 or 6 years ago Murray, a landscape gardener by trade, started writing poetry.
A natural activist, Murray could always be counted on to turn up to, and participate in any protest for actions that were deemed to be not in the interests of his beloved Bondi (the attempted privatisation of the Bondi Pavilion anyone?), the place of his birth.
For the last year he has been pasting his poetry on the Hall Street hoardings of various new developments, in defiance of the “No Bill Posters” warnings, as a quiet show of activism against all the changes in the neighbourhood. These hoardings would be taken down and put back up without any consideration for the placement of the poetry leaving some of the pastings cut in half or upside down. Murray saw this as poetic.
The culminating book, Hall Street 100: A year of Bondi Billboards was launched at the Bondi Bowlo last Wednesday by old friend of Murray’s, Paul Paech, who so beautifully reminded us of the deep vein of creativity and wonder that still exist here, even with all the new development coming our way.
Murray read several of his works but he also spoke to us of his process. This is what he had to say:
“I write to try and make sense of our human predicament in/on this world.
Firstly in cursive, thoughts looping to finger tips, then a draft typed, and in that
mechanical process, with all the letters same sized and equally spaced, easy to move
around, the wording is compressed.
Once printed I take them for a walk to the beach, speak them out loud as if a script
to be acted, weighing the rhythm and rhyme, where there are stumble stones and
undertones that were not apparent, silent on the page.
Are words shadows of our thoughts,
reflections of the mind’s design?
He, Wittgenstein, said onecannotthink
otherthanintermsoflanguage.
Was that ever true?
What do creatures do
with their tongues,
call that instinct?
How about these strokes -
each letter pecked out on a page,
can the curve, line, dot - read at a glance,
truthfully represents our existence?”
You’ll find Murray’s book at Gertrude and Alice on Hall Street.
Paul Paech
The book
Milk Bar pasting
Landing pasting
