Thanks to The Pavement Poet for the second in our series of guest blogs. I’ve been aware of his work for a number of years but what really put him on my radar was the fact that Swindon specifically constructed a PSPO to prevent him perverting their wannabe sanitised dystopia with his dangerous chalks and free thinking. Here’s what he has to say.

“I remember the day i first put chalk to pavement. At the time i wasn’t hoping for more than a few smiles and the cost of getting myself to the next town. By this point i’d been wandering around for a few years and any plans i’d had when i first set out on my journey had long since vanished with the seasons.

From that moment came a lot, of which my first book “The Pavement Poet: Chalk Fired” is the latest byproduct. Reflecting the poetry led, architecturally inspired, chalk based art form that I have made my own over the last few years, I like to think that this book is much like my work on the pavements. More permanent maybe; but from the poetry, to the photography of my poetic interactions in towns & cities across Europe, right through to the occasional tale of happenstance from what has been a nine year long journey – It’s all there.

I remember well all of the places to have passed me by over the last few years. The pavements, the faces, the conversations. Almost as if this book could never have been but for the time I’ve spent wandering about with my chalk. In that much the streets have given me more than I had ever anticipated. Inspiring not just this book, but also helping me to detach from an increasingly maddening world and become more open to the vast patchwork of people, cultures & ways of being which make this life and this world so fascinating.

Not that it hasn’t been difficult. There can at times be a misperception of those who create in the public space. There’s been the good days, the bad days, the days when every anorak and whichever council official they have on speed dial appears to be against public art. But as always these are just moments and for those of us who do, it’s just another reason to come back the next day.”

You can find out more about The Pavement Poet: Chalk Fired by clicking on the following link or by following The Pavement Poet on Facebook:

http://danielmrowland.blogspot.com/2021/03/chalk-fired-available-for-pre-order-now.html

What do we say?

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What do we say when the chalken pen
Has marked The Way in ways unsaid?
A summer sunrise come to be
For those who choose to go and see.
What do we say when a winter sun
It marks the passing of the fun
Which found us on those summer days
When time and memory went astray?
What do we say to the autumn eye
For those who watch the forest die
Away until a coming spring
Brings warmer days and thankful grins?
What do we say to the spring time gaze
When feeling winter make them age
One more year closer to the end
Where life it rocks and rolls again?